


i'm a good, good neighbour

by Kendarrr



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Canon Compliant, Cheating, F/F, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26344459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendarrr/pseuds/Kendarrr
Summary: Recently graduated from college, Quinn moved back in Lima to house sit her childhood home while her mother traveled all over the world. What she did not realize was that her next door neighbour was Finn – and his wife, Rachel. Would the memories of their hometown and Rachel's proximity bring feelings Quinn thought she lost back to the surface?
Relationships: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Comments: 42
Kudos: 183





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this story a while back (mid-March, maybe?) and paused it because questioning my own morals was harder than I thought. I went back to writing at the start of August because half-finished works bother the hell out of me.
> 
> This fic includes: Quinn as a lounge singer at a lesbian bar, sex dreams, and emotional (& physical) infidelity. Finn and Rachel are married.
> 
> This is rated Mature (and not Explicit) because I wasn't graphic with the sex. But there will be sex - down the line.
> 
> The fic's title came from the song Good Neighbor sung by Lynda Carter, from the Fallout 4 soundtrack. The lyrics don't really have much to do with the story but the energy the song gives is what I was going for.

_Now, is your motor running close to empty?_   
_Or are you running from yourself?_   
_Were you thirsty for a brand new kind of pleasure_   
_Or are you hungry to be somebody else?_

\----

When Quinn opened her eyes late that morning, she had no idea where she was. The sunlight that filtered through the translucent green curtains dyed the cream-painted walls of her childhood bedroom a pale and sickly colour. Here she was – and it never ceased to disorient her – back in Lima once again.

She kicked the thin blankets off her body and stumbled her way to the bathroom. She washed her face, inspected her features for any signs of weariness or age. She brushed her teeth and hummed a song – one of the final requests she received the night before. A jaunty, old-timey tune, as usual. One that sang of boozy nights, whisky on the rocks, lonely and lonesome and fueled with regret. Requests always took that turn when the clock struck one in the morning, when only the regulars and the lovelorn, who tend to be one and the same, lingered in the bar. Last night’s show ended a bit early since today was Monday, and even the regulars and the lovelorn needed to go to work.

Quinn stretched her arms above her head and went downstairs to make herself some coffee, and if she still felt like it, breakfast. It neared lunchtime so she might hold out until then. She peeked out the front windows to see if a truck remained parked on her neighbour’s driveway. Sighed in relief when she saw the black asphalt of the driveway and nothing else. That was when she stepped out to retrieve the mail and the morning paper.

She scanned the headlines and did not bother to sort the mail. Everything was addressed to her mother, anyway, and she opted out of paper mail for most things. Tossed her mother’s mail into the growing pile on the side table as she went back to the kitchen for her coffee. She checked her email on her phone and hastily opened the email from a Yale University address – it was from her unofficial mentor, the professor whose office hours she often frequented during her years as an undergrad.

> Dear Quinn,
> 
> How’s life post-graduation treating you?
> 
> I’m writing you because a friend of mine, a theatre director, is looking for an assistant to help run and manage a brand new production. I know you’re keen for behind-the-scenes experience more than being on-stage most times (which I understand), so I immediately thought of you. You are beyond qualified for this position, given your understanding for how to manage the nitty-gritty of theatre, and divas, for that matter.
> 
> Attached is the email I received from this friend of mine outlining what she wants for the position. Let me know if you apply and I’ll send her a recommendation letter.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Sophie

Quinn looked through the email that was attached to her professor’s message. Sure enough, it used the type of language one often saw in job descriptions: a detail-oriented individual, a team player, etcetera. Her mind was made up to apply, but a particular detail gave her pause:

The position was for New York. Not New Haven like she expected.

She hesitated then. She had a couple of friends from college who went directly to New York after graduation, hoping to audition and land a role immediately, so she could surely find a place to stay until she managed the move. Luckily, she did not have to go to the city to meet face-to-face since it was to be a phone interview.

The fact that her professor thought of her, Quinn could not resist the flare of her ego. It vindicated her, erased the feelings of deficiency that being in Lima often brought about in her. It was like being stuck in the past, whenever she walked the same suburban streets. The only difference now was that she worked in an area she never thought existed – Lima’s gay neighbourhood.

But more on that later.

Quinn responded to her professor:

> Dear Sophie,
> 
> Thank you so much for thinking of me for this opportunity. You’re right; I rather work behind the scenes, especially since my ego is not that demanding. I rather much see the inner-workings of theatre, be the one who makes the magic happen, so to speak. I was just surprised that it’s for a New York theatre and not New Haven, like I expected. But it’s not a big deal. I like New York – what little I’ve seen of it, anyway.
> 
> Postgrad life seemed bleak until your email. Right now, I’m back in Ohio, my home state, so I am sure you can imagine how that would feel. I keep telling myself that I did not _fail_ – my mother needed someone to house-sit while she travelled the globe, and conveniently, I was unemployed so she took advantage of it. And it’s not like I’m idle either. I work as a lounge singer at a local bar. Pay’s not much but the drinks are free, it gets me out of the house, and I get to meet interesting people.
> 
> I am applying for this position.
> 
> Again, you have my most sincere thanks for thinking of me.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Quinn

She typed up a hasty cover letter and went off to do her laundry. She was running out of cocktail dresses to wear for her performances so she stuck to wearing a simple black gown that shimmered in certain lights. She spilled beer on it last night and she would hate to reek of its yeasty smell later tonight. While the washing machine gently churned, she straightened the living room and made herself lunch.

Hours passed. Quinn stuck her clothes in the dryer and revised her cover letter. It was not until she had a few minutes left before she had to leave for work that she sent the email with her cover letter and resumé attached, along with her professor’s recommendation letter. This way, she would not obsess over the reply. She got dressed, grabbed her purse, and headed out the door. She fumbled with her keys to lock the door, only to freeze when she heard the familiar rumbling of her neighbour’s truck pulling into their driveway.

There was no escape. She would have to make nice. Cringe her way through small talk.

“Hey Quinn!” He slammed his car door and waved. Approached the hedge that drew the lines to their property. Quinn’s neighbour was relatively new to the neighbourhood – he had not been her neighbour before she left for college. Still, it was both disconcerting and comforting that her neighbour still spiked his hair the same way he did, back in high school.

“Hi Finn,” she offered him a smile – a sincere one, not a grimace. After all her attempts to avoid Finn ever since she came back to house-sit for her mother, she still liked talking to him. To a distant, impersonal extent, of course. “How was work?”

“Oh, well, you know,” he tugged at his coveralls, dyed blue and stained with grease and oil and goodness knows what else. “It was good. Don’t think you care to listen to me talk about carburetors much. You off to work now?”

Quinn nodded. “Yep. Off to go and sing for my dinner.”

“Yeah? I haven’t heard you sing in years. Maybe I should come watch.” Finn grinned. “Where do you sing again?”

“It’s a bar called Isle L.”

Finn blinked. “Never heard of it.”

Quinn snorted. “Yeah, I’d be surprised if you have. It’s not really a sports bar.”

“No wonder,” he laughed. “It’s probably one of those artsy bars you would like. The kind you’d go to in New York.”

Again, with that blasted city. Before Quinn realized it, she was asking a question she skirted around for most of her stay in Lima every time she caught a conversation with Finn. The words spilled out of her like an impulse. A desire stifled is not desire removed, after all. “Speaking of, how’s Rachel?”

Even Finn looked surprised. His eyes widened, he reared back a little. “Oh! Uh,” ever the eloquent man, Quinn thought with a small smile. “She’s still living in New York for her Broadway show, uh…” He scratched the back of his head, the scruff of his cheek bristled against his nails. “...I forgot what it’s called. _Fun Time for the Oprah_?”

“ _Phantom of the Opera_ , Finn. She’s Christine Daeé in it.”

He blinked. “How’d you know? She told you that?”

“It’s not that hard to find these things out.” Quinn muttered, omitting the fact of her late-night search activities without revealing everything about herself.

Finn frowned and tugged at the initial form of his beard. “Do you talk to Rachel much lately?”

“Not at all,” Quinn said.

Finn nodded. “Yeah, sounds about right. We used to call each other every night, but now…”

She flinched. She did not need, nor did she want to know anything about their domestic life. She rather not know, rather not acknowledge the unfortunate truth of their marriage despite her protestations, way back when. She lifted the strap of her purse higher up her shoulder. Let it fall and slice against the notch where her shoulder and neck met. “Well, I better go or I’ll be late.”

“I think she’s coming back home this Wednesday or something – you should come over for dinner then!” Finn said in a rush. “It’ll be fun – and that way she can actually talk to someone who knows what’s going on in theatre. She talks so fast sometimes, hardly explains anything, you know how she is. I can barely keep up.” He ducked his head, sheepish. “Just think about it, okay? I’m sure she’d be happy to see you.”

He made his quick escape. Entered his house and let the door close shut behind him. Quinn shook her head and got into her car. Pulled out the driveway and drove through the familiar streets of her childhood. The same empty sidewalks, the sluggish shifts of traffic lights from green to orange to red. The rustling of the wind through the trees shook with no identifiable rhythm. A scent, like spilt gasoline, like freshly mown grass, permeated the city in a sleepy splendour.

Quinn never thought her next-door neighbours would be Finn Hudson and Rachel Berry, of all people. Granted, they were technically not _her_ neighbours but her mother’s. For the duration of her stay, and every stay hereafter, she would now have to live with the idea that Finn and Rachel were right next door, doing whatever it was that married couples do.

Again, more on that later.

She pulled up at a sidestreet and parked her car. Walked the short distance towards Isle L. Wedged between a coffee shop and a laundromat, it had been in business longer than Quinn had been alive. A few months ago, feeling restless from staying at home for days on end, Quinn decided to end her misery and opted to explore this side of Lima – the side she was warned against, described by her father as ‘dens of sin and decadence.’ He did not warn about the charming and handsome stone butches who would open the door for you, their sharp, cedary cologne following you into the bar. The femmes with their crimson lipstick that clung to your cheek after they kissed you there. Their heels matched the rhythm of the beat-up, steel-toed grey and scuffed boots as one by one, two by two, sometimes the odd three by three, filtered into Isle L where the booze, the laughter – and sometimes, the tears – ever floweth.

Quinn entered through the employee side door where Cal, in her white shirt and baggy denims, was hauling in beer crates that were dropped off by the supplier earlier that day. At the sight of Quinn, she straightened from her squatting position, slicked back her hair, and offered a polite grin. “How’s it going, miss Quinn?”

“Getting there, Cal. Just drop the miss, and we’ll be golden.”

She laughed. “Give me a few more weeks.”

Quinn pushed through the narrow hallway that led into her cramped dressing room. There was barely enough room to pace around in, and it only had enough space for a vanity, a rack for her clothes, a stool, an armchair, and a full-length body mirror. Heaps of Quinn’s rotating attire were draped over said armchair. She closed the door behind her and dressed herself for the night ahead. She slipped into her freshly-laundered black cocktail dress. It’s neckline plunged deeply, revealed the pale skin of her torso. She dabbed a thin layer of concealer, some lip gloss, but rather than pin her hair in a tight bun, she opted for allowing her long blonde locks to frame her features. Just for a change of pace.

When she emerged, the jazz band were on stage, tuning their instruments. Quinn passed by the bar where the owner, a stocky, fit butch dressed in a navy blue work coat, the spicy, musky smell of Axe radiating off her, was polishing the counter. At the sight of Quinn, she clutched her chest and pretended to stagger.

“Well aren’t you a piece of heaven among mortals.”

“Oh stop,” Quinn lifted herself onto the bar stool but did not lean against the counter. It reeked of the sweet-smelling polishing wax, and she knew how particular Vick was with her precious hardwood.

“Can I get you some fortification before your performance?”

“I’d like something fruity, if you don’t mind. I need to forget about my neighbour. He just asked me if I wanted to have dinner with him and his wife when they haven’t seen each other in months.”

Vick raised a brow and retrieved a champagne flute that dangled by the base on a rack above her to make Quinn’s drink. “Aren’t you in love with his wife?”

Quinn flushed and looked away. “I wouldn’t say it like _that_.”

“And how would _you_ say it? I tried to stop their wedding because I have totally friendly feelings for his wife! Absolutely normal?”

“You promised you wouldn’t bring that up anymore.” Quinn whined.

“Right, sorry,” Vick laughed and shook her head. “Whatever you said when you were drunk can’t be held against you.”

She finished making Quinn’s cocktail. A peach bellini topped with a fan of thinly-sliced peaches. The drink was fashioned into the colours of the sunset that now filtered, pink, orange, yellow, through the front windows. The floors, the leather chairs, the brick walls, were awash with this late afternoon light that gave the air the sort of melancholy that was impossible to stomach. Quinn sipped her drink and sighed.

As always, it burned to admit. Not that she ever admitted it out loud in the specific configuration of words, ‘ _I am in love with Rachel Berry’_ , to anyone who knew them mutually. She was only willing to talk about it to her friends and acquaintances who knew absolutely nothing about Rachel. The most Vick knew about Rachel, the most Quinn mentioned of her—beyond the drunken admission of a botched attempt to stop their wedding—was that they knew each other in high school and that they were now, technically, next-door neighbours.

Vick sucked her teeth and poured out a pint of beer for the influx of customers – regulars who need not tell her their drink orders. “I’m telling you – half of the patrons of this bar want to be the one to help you get over this girl. You just gotta let ‘em.”

“Thanks, _dad_.”

The bartender scoffed. “As if your dad ever gave you sage advice like I do.”

Quinn grinned and sipped her drink as she turned towards the bar proper. Isle L is only ever packed with bodies during weekends, so Quinn did not expect to make much in tips, especially on a Monday. This usually meant she had fun with her setlist, choosing songs that were not familiar favourites like Etta James or Nancy Sinatra. She used Mondays as the time to experiment and try new artists. Thankfully, her jazz band liked to humour her.

Downing the rest of her peach bellini, she need not excuse herself as Vick was busy with the patrons. On her way to the stage, she greeted the handful of regulars closer to her age – some recent college graduates, some still attending the local community college. She made small talk with some of them, flirting harmlessly before she climbed the stage. It was hardly a stage, really. Raised only by two feet, it elevated Quinn enough so she could see the farthest wall, but once the spotlight shone on her, everything faded into darkness. Which was better – to pretend that she sang to no one but herself. Reality only resumed when the song ended and the applause began.

She said hello to her jazz band, who performed a soundcheck for one of the new songs Quinn thought of performing. They signalled their readiness, so Quinn perched herself on top of the tall bar stool. Gripped the neck of the microphone stand and adjusted it – though there was no need for it. It was a nervous fidget, at this point.

The chatter dissipated into a hush when the patrons noticed Quinn take her position. The lights dimmed, and the beam of light focused on Quinn and the jazz band behind her so that only they were illuminated in the low square-footage of the bar. With the new song in her repertoire, it was always accompanied with jitters. The instruments started, just as Quinn heard the distant bell that signalled the front door opening and closing.

One deep breath. Quinn sang.

She immersed herself in the words, in the music that accompanied it. She swayed in rhythm, her low, smoky voice complimented the come-hither mood of the tune. She loved this song because it offered a balm from the world’s aches, and wasn’t that all you could ask for, in the end? Grasping the neck of mic stand, she crooned with a certain soft intimacy:

“ _I'm telling you friend, your search is at an end ‘cause I'm the one you're looking for._ ”

The tender crash of the cymbals ended the song, and the inevitable silence followed. Then the smattering of applause. Quinn took that lull to leap right into the more familiar songs for her set, songs that got the patrons dancing before the front of the stage. Couples young and old swayed along as Quinn and the band breezed through the setlist that she hardly noticed the end of it. The clipboard filled with song requests wound back on her lap and she took that time to take a break to wet her lips with drink and discuss the songs with her band.

After they chose the handful of songs with which to close the night, they performed them to grander applause. Quinn’s pulse thrummed. She stepped off the stage, graciously accepted the hugs, the handshakes, the ‘great job!s’, and everything in between. But she was still thirsty, and not for a boozy drink either. She made a beeline for the bar, slumped against the waxed counter. A highball glass of cold fresh water found its way in front of her, and she chugged it all without stopping.

“The lungs on this girl,” Vick’s wife, Ella shook her head. She gave Quinn’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You sound great, as usual. Also,” her voice dropped in a low whisper as she curled her arm around Quinn’s shoulders. She leaned close. Quinn smelled the vanilla in her hair. “There’s a woman sitting at the end of the bar. She claims to know you.”

Quinn craned her neck to look, but all she caught was the vision of chestnut hair before Ella yanked her arm. “Don’t look _now_!”

“Sorry,” Quinn hissed. “Why are we whispering? So what if she claims to know me? I’m hardly a big deal to be wary about that.”

Ella opened her mouth to retort, but she threw a glance towards the woman before she sighed. “It’s not that. She said she’s… Nevermind.”

She left armed with a tray of beer bottles for the customers while Quinn watched her retreating form. With her butt parked on the bar stool, her requisite one bottle of ice-cold beer before her, she let out a heavy sigh. She was curious, sure, about the woman at the end of the bar, but she also had no high hopes as to who it may be. Swallowing a mouthful of her drink, she turned just enough to catch a glimpse of the woman – who now approached her.

Quinn choked and sputtered against the counter. Her face turned a brilliant shade of beet. She hastily wiped the bartop with any paper towels she could find and forced herself to regain a semblance of composure – to no avail.

“It’s nice to see you too, Quinn.” The woman teased. She was dressed in all black, like Quinn, and she could not help but wonder if she was in mourning for something too.

Quinn felt more like a drunk with every cough that wracked her body. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and huffed. “Rachel. What are you doing here?”

“I should ask you the same question. This is the last place I would ever think of bumping into you.”

“You mean because we’re in a lesbian bar?”

Rachel chuckled and sipped her old-fashioned whisky. “That is correct.”

With her elbow against the counter, the neck of her beer bottle clasped loose against forefinger and middle finger like a heavy cigar, Quinn eyed Rachel. Long gone was the over-confident, over-eager eighteen year old girl who wore short skirts and plaid dresses. Her long hair, the discreet manner of allowing Quinn to stare, lent her an air of maturity. Her heart, oh how it raced hard against her ribs. Quinn cleared her throat and drank.

“Finn said you won’t be back until Wednesday. Did your show end early?”

“Something like that. What about you? Why are you back in Ohio? But more specifically…” Rachel glanced at the stage, then back at Quinn. “Since when did you sing at Isle L?”

Quinn explained the arrangement she and her mother established as the reason for her return. “It’s nothing permanent.”

“I didn’t think it is, not for one second,” Rachel assured her.

They sat in silence. Stewed in the awkwardness of their liminal friendship. Quinn opted not to think about Rachel’s role, what status she may or may not hold in her life, and instead asked after her show. Immediately, Rachel lit up. At least that remained the same – how Rachel did not shy away from discussing her achievements or talking about anything remotely Broadway-related. She rambled on about her role as Christine Daeé, even went as far as to provide a background of the musical. As if Quinn did not watch the film with Emmy Rossum in it.

She missed Rachel so much that she let her ramble for a few minutes about the plot’s intricacies before she announced: “I know – I watched the film.”

Rachel did not allow that piece of fact deflate her. “I am fully aware of live Broadway shows and their inaccessibility to the general public nowadays, especially when it didn’t start out to be this expensive thing – but I _am_ a little miffed over the fact that film makes roles static. _Now_ , the actress in the film will be the one forever known as _the_ Christine Daeé and it’s unfair, don’t you think?”

“Isn’t that what happened with Barbra and the role of Fanny Brice? Audrey Hepburn and Eliza Doolittle?”

Rachel frowned. “You make a fair point.”

“What you’re saying is, video killed the theatre star?”

The most beautiful woman in the world threw her head back and laughed. “Yes, that is precisely what I am saying.”

What sore and painful awkwardness that lurked in their initial conversation dissipated like steam, like vapour. Vick topped up their drinks, and they kept drinking until their speech slurred, and Rachel found herself unable to remain upright.

“You could never control your alcohol,” Quinn chastised. She wasn’t _as_ drunk as the dark-haired woman – all she had been sipping on was pale ales while Rachel drank the best rye whisky in Ohio. But then, Rachel’s proximity was intoxicating on its own. She radiated heat like it was her purpose. Quinn looped one arm around her waist and ushered her towards an unoccupied booth.

“I’d like to think I’ve gone a long way since getting illegally drunk at sixteen,” she mumbled.

“Yes, very far. You’re no longer just slamming grapefruit vodka coolers. Now you drink straight-up whisky.”

Rachel leaned her chin against Quinn’s shoulder. Her doe-eyes, glassy and warm, focused on Quinn’s flustered features. “I missed you, you know.”

“I would never have guessed,” she said. “Given that you didn’t use the Metro North pass I gave you.”

“I know,” Rachel’s response was surprisingly apologetic. “I was a coward. I wasn’t – I didn’t really think you _meant_ it when you said you wanted to stay in touch.”

“Rachel, those tickets were two hundred dollars,” Quinn laughed in sheer disbelief. “I don’t pay that much money for something I don’t mean.”

“I can pay you back.”

“Don’t,” Quinn eased Rachel onto a plush leather seat. “It’s not about the money.”

It was all about the weekends spent lonely, wondering if it was over-reaching or beyond all realm of possibility to want to see Rachel even for just a few hours. How she had the Metro North pass pinned on her corkboard above her desk as a constant, prodding reminder of what she could not have.

Until its usage expired, unused.

But of course, Quinn did not say those things out loud.

Rachel looked at her from across the booth, her hands clasped around the lowball glass in front of her. Emptied save for the sphere of ice that melted and pooled at the bottom of the glass. Rachel always felt like she was worlds apart. With her orbit now dangerously close to Quinn’s, how her eyes signalled an imminent collision, Quinn embraced the possibility willingly.

A glint of gold in the low light, however, tore her from her thoughts.

_Right_. Rachel is _married_.

“How long are you in Lima for?” Quinn asked.

“It depends, really,” Rachel said, chewing her bottom lip. “My show’s on break for a couple of weeks since the peak of the season just ended. But if I need more time, I can always take another two weeks off.”

“And use your understudy?”

Rachel’s jaw flexed. “I – yes.”

“Why would you need to take more time off? I mean, I guess, unless you and Finn can’t get enough of each other again or something.” Quinn chuckled and looked away in order to not see how the joke landed on Rachel. She swallowed the rest of her beer and rose to her feet, her balance tenuous at best.

Rachel frowned at her. “Where do you think you’re going? Did you drive here?”

“I did – but I was just going to the bathroom.”

She left before Rachel could say anything else. She wobbled her way to the bathroom and emptied her bladder for what felt like five minutes. Doused her face in cold water to sober up a little. She stepped out of the bathroom to change out of her dress and into the clothes she came in – her comfortable jeans and sweater. She went back to the bar and found Rachel still at the booth, her chin resting against her forearms. Her eyes were closed. As Quinn approached, Rachel opened one eye and sat up once again.

“You can’t drive home like that – you’re drunk,” Rachel said. She stood, wobbled, and looped her arm around Quinn’s for much-needed balance and together they headed to the bar. It was two in the morning and Isle L was deserted save for the handful of people that remained who likely did not have work later in the day. Vick looked at Quinn and Rachel and raised her brow. Quinn pointedly ignored the look and instead focused on the warmth radiating from Rachel’s small body. It was almost uncomfortable, given how warm it was inside the bar, but Quinn hardly let that bother her.

“I wasn’t going to. I was going to get a ride and just come back next morning to pick my car up from the garage.”

“No need. My hotel is walking distance from here.” Rachel turned to Vick, her wallet in her hand. “I had three whiskys, I think.”

“Don’t worry about it – Quinn’s friends don’t pay for drinks around here.” Vick shot Quinn another look which she ignored.

Rachel giggled and pressed her cheek against Quinn’s upper arm. “The perks of being with a star.”

“What perks do _I_ get?” Quinn said as she walked them out of the humidity of Isle L into the cool night air that lapped at their skin. “Being with you and all.”

“Hmm, I don’t know yet. I’ll have to get back to you on that,” Rachel said, her looped arm around Quinn tightening.

Every ten or so minutes, a car would drive past while they walked down the streets. Other drunken bar and partygoers passed them by, dragging their friends who were too drunk to walk. They also saw a couple pressed against the nook of a store entryway, making out. Their path lit by the dull orange glow of the lamppost led them to the nearby hotel that sat on the cusp between Lima’s financial district and the gay neighbourhood. Rachel waved at the doorkeeper in the midst of his nightshift where he was perched on a wooden folding chair and Quinn followed her into the rapid creak of the elevator that took them to the seventh floor.

+

“How come you’re staying at a hotel? Don’t you have a house? With Finn? In the same neighbourhood as where my mom lives?” Quinn asked while Rachel swiped her keycard to open the door to her hotel room. Rachel flicked the lights on to reveal a sparsely-decorated hotel room that was utilitarian in its design. There was a couch, a low coffee table, and then the large bed with white, mussed sheets. Generic floral paintings and seaside landscapes hung on the walls and it was organized to the point of discomfort. The walls were a dull blue-grey, and the carpeted floor was of a deep navy blue. A faint smell of disuse, of absence, and cleaning solution permeated the air. Rachel’s luggage stood at the foot of the bed.

“I do, but sometimes I need time away from him,” Rachel said.

“What do you mean? You already spend so much time away from him – in a different state, no less.”

Rachel hung her jacket, her scarf, and her keys upon a row of hooks by the door. “That’s the thing, isn’t it? I spend so much time away from him that I kind of get used to it. I fly in a few days earlier than what I tell him to get used to the idea that I’m back in Ohio and that I have a husband.” She sighed, defeated. Stopped in front of the fridge and poured out two glasses of water, handed one to Quinn. “You’re not going to tell him, right?”

“It’s not my business to,” Quinn said.

“Thanks, Quinn,” Rachel said with a weak smile. She took her by the hand so they could sit on the couch, their knees bumping against each other’s. “For an outsider it might be terrible of me to stay at a hotel that my husband doesn’t know about because it would seem like it’s a hotbed of inappropriate activity, but I swear no one else has been here – except for you.”

Quinn swallowed back the bitterness, chalked it up to the aftertaste of the beers she had. The cold water caught in her throat, along with the implication left unsaid. It was completely and utterly safe for Quinn to be here because, well...

Nothing would ever happen between them, as established by Rachel’s friendly pat on her shoulder. Tears sprang in Quinn’s eyes, sudden like a suckerpunch, and she immediately covered it up with a yawn. With a discreet motion she wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.

“Come on, let’s go to bed,” Rachel took the half-drunk glass of water from Quinn’s grasp to place on the sheet glass surface of the coffee table. She took Quinn by the hand, and, given that Quinn felt beholden, her garrison of feelings weakened by pale ales and the lateness of the hour, followed Rachel towards the bed that took up most of the space in the room.

“You want me to sleep here? With you?” Quinn stammered. “I don’t – I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Oh Quinn,” Rachel said playfully, her eyes half-lidded, drowsy. “It’ll be fine. It’s just for sleep.”

Quinn’s throat flexed. When else would she have the opportunity to lie so close to paradise? Here it was, offered to her on a silver platter, yet a large part of her subconscious decreed it to be a terrible idea – one that would be impossible to recover from. It might explain the fire that lined her chest and throat, but that might just be heartburn from the beers. Quinn released a weak sigh. “Okay. But let me use the bathroom first.”

“It’s the first door to your right. There’s another toothbrush in the cupboard in there, if you want it.”

She walked slowly out of the bedroom whose walls declared a certain impending event, not necessarily of doom or salvation, but something that, until the boundary was crossed, would be indecipherable whether it was to be a good thing or a bad thing. Quinn took the complimentary toothbrush, the kind that you would receive from the dentist for free in a plastic bag along with a sampler of dental floss, toothpaste, and the calling card with your next appointment date, and used it to brush her teeth. She washed her face once again, in hopes of sobering herself some more, despite knowing that she was as clear-headed as she was going to get – especially when it involved making a decision that some way, somehow, involved Rachel.

Beside the bed, Rachel’s form was lit by the lone bedside lamp. She sat, her back against the headboard, the duvet spread over her lap. The mound of her clothes made up a pile on the floor. She wore a chemise of some sort – translucent pink with small frills and tiny bows along the neckline. Her chestnut brown hair draped over one side of her shoulder and fell in luxurious waves that shone in the dim light.

“We’re both adults, right? We can sleep on the same bed,” Rachel drew back the duvet to expose the surface of the mattress with its simple white sheets and the length of her tanned leg. “What are you so afraid of?”

Her voice sounded like she was teasing. As it was, Quinn was speechless so there was no way for her to answer Rachel, even if she was serious in her asking.

Rachel reached for the lamp to immerse the room in darkness, save for the pool of orange and moonlight that streamed between the slivers of the curtains. Quinn shed her sweater and her jeans so she wore nothing but a thin white shirt and her cotton panties. She slinked under the blankets with Rachel. The warmth from her body provided a humidity under the covers that made Quinn shiver.

“Cold?” Rachel asked softly. “Why don’t you move closer? You’re on the edge and you just might fall.”

“You know, I can’t help but feel this is some kind of trap,” Quinn murmured, glancing at Rachel who now reclined beside her, her head propped up in her hand to gaze at Quinn.

“Why would I trap you?” Rachel asked. “Quinn, I swear you’re going to fall off the bed.”

She reached to the other side of Quinn and pulled her by her waist so their bodies touched. Quinn swore in her mind, cussed like a sailor, an unending stream of curses and filthy language when the softness of Rachel’s breasts pressed against her upper arm. She stared at the blank white of the ceiling, though she felt the temerity of Rachel’s eyes on her face. As if undergoing an attempt to peer into the depths of what she attempted to hide.

Quinn gripped the arm Rachel had wrapped around her and scooted closer to her body so space ceased to exist between them. She felt young again. She felt young and it scared her. The four years she spent distant and away Quinn thought to have been enough for her to forget the anguish of love unrequited that brewed inside her stomach but Rachel’s nearness, the tactile reminder of her existence was enough for Quinn to remember the love she once thought had perished in the flames of abandonment. She swallowed hard, tried not to think. Chanted, _she’s married, she’s_ married _to her high school sweetheart and they are your next door god damn neighbour_ as if the proximity of their postal codes demanded emotional distance. If they did not live so close to Quinn’s childhood home, would it have been any better?

Rachel, backlit by moonlight – straight out of Quinn’s most heart-rending dreams – hovered over her. The last leg of the alcoholic buzz held Quinn by the neck. The pounding of her chest was all she could hear.

Certain things like the reality of an impending love never yawned and hesitated as much as Quinn thought it would. It was not the uncertainty. It was not being unsure, for she knew what she wanted – Rachel, cleanly, precisely, not under cover of darkness. In that, Quinn failed, because Rachel crossed the divide between uncertainty and doubt with such decisive ease that Quinn had to wonder if it really was that easy to kiss someone with whom you have such a tenuous past.

Maybe if it was just a singular kiss it would be easy to pass off as nostalgia for the dramatic life they once led – full of seduction and betrayal, hesitant starts and false hopes, all limned with the same pattern of longing. But when Rachel eased her warm, sticky mouth from Quinn, she clung tightly to Rachel’s arms. Whimpered a soft _‘no’_. Quinn wanted more of her whisky breath, a taste she would now associate with the terror of being the other woman.

The progression of her body’s thrumming could match an operatic aria in the rise and swell of its tide. Rachel, her soft, intoxicating warmth, pinned Quinn to the bed. The second time around, they met each other halfway in a kiss that unfurled Quinn’s insides. She drank from Rachel’s lips all that she could, and all clear thought left her. She was nothing but nerves, frayed and lit up from Rachel’s tender touch. Quinn had her fair share of casual sex in college, thought she had some fantastic experiences, but here, it was evident.

It really was different with someone you love.

Quinn tore her mouth from Rachel’s and scrambled to get up from the bed, weak legs be damned. The thought, like a cherry bomb exploding in her brain, shook her free from her desires. “We can’t. _I_ can’t. Not like this.” She said breathlessly.

“Not like what?”

A soft choked sound spilled from Quinn’s throat. She shook her head. Left the darkness of the bed in favour of the darkness pooling on the hardwood floor. She escaped to the opposite end of the hotel room. Her crash cymbal of a heart thrummed infinitely inside her ribs. She collapsed on the couch, head propped against a pillow against the armrest. The minute hairs on her arms, her thighs, her entire body felt electric. Not to mention her mouth. Perhaps it was because she had not kissed anyone in so long. Alternatively, perhaps it was because it was Rachel who kissed her, which explained the chafed, exposed sensation of her lips. Quinn closed her eyes but shot them open again when the darkness allowed her mind to wander, allowed her to imagine the texture of Rachel’s mouth once again.

She rested an arm over her eyes and muttered a soft stream of curses in her head. So concerned was she with keeping her mind busy full of curse words that she did not hear the patter of footsteps until she heard the rustling of a thin blanket that draped over her body along with Rachel squeezing into the couch with her, her back turned towards Quinn.

“I’m sorry if I crossed a line that made you uncomfortable, Quinn.” The blonde felt rather than hear the vibrations of Rachel’s voice through her body pressed up against Quinn’s torso.

“You shouldn’t be apologizing to me. You’re _married_ , Rachel, so you should be worrying about your husband. Not me.” Quinn said, her voice hoarse. Her arm no longer immersing her vision in darkness. All she could see now was the crest of Rachel’s bare shoulders, the thin strap of her tanktop, the top of her head, her ear, her cheek. With the upper hand of Rachel unable to see her face, the tension in Quinn’s face relaxed.

“We don’t have to talk about it yet. But please let me sleep here if you don’t want to go back to bed with me.”

But Quinn did not want to fall asleep, not yet. Not with the sticky sweat that encompassed her body. Not when this tiny repressed longing she held so close to her chest now existed in the vicinity of actual existence, no matter how brief. Quinn sucked in a breath when Rachel looked back over her shoulder and met Quinn’s eyes. And in them, swore she saw the constellation of possibility.

“That’s fine. You can stay.”

Quinn stared at the exposed curve of Rachel’s neck. Upon her skin she witnessed a mole, a birthmark of some sort, peeking through the neck of her shirt. She stared at it, in the lull, in the silence of the night with nothing but their rhythmic, attuned breathing resonating in the room. She stared at the tiny speck of a mark until, her eyes crossed from exhaustion, from delirious desire to kiss that skin, just to taste.

-

She fell into a lull and found herself in the middle of a dream. Rachel, her arms around Quinn’s waist, her mouth hot on hers, pushed her into a room with pale peach walls and cold hardwood floors. It was bright, and as Quinn’s legs hit the edge of the bed, she fell back with a gasp. Rachel hovered above her, this fantasy, this ghost, who felt as real as the bed’s surface against her back.

“Are you okay with this? You are married, right? I didn’t just imagine that wedding?” Quinn asked through shallow breaths, Rachel’s mouth hot on her neck, biting at her pulse. The thought of Rachel’s mouth leaving a mark sent a ripple of a current between Quinn’s aching legs. She squeezed her thighs together. Her breath hitched in her throat.

Rachel’s splayed hand that cupped Quinn’s breast flexed. The glint of gold caught a hint of moonlight and it was a blinding reminder, the ghost that floated at the edge of the bed. Rachel wrenched the ring off her finger and flung it outward. It clinked and rolled in an unknown direction.

“You’re so dramatic,” Quinn huffed.

“I know that removing the ring doesn’t change a thing, but I want this with you, Quinn.” Rachel’s voice was breathy and it made Quinn’s toes curl.

Quinn swallowed hard and clutched Rachel’s shoulders. Swept back her chestnut hair and cupped the sides of her neck and craned to kiss her again. Rachel held Quinn by her hips, her fingers indiscreet, sliding up the thin fabric of her shirt. She kissed down Quinn’s neck once again, her lips grazed against the protruding stiffness of the blonde’s nipples.

It was just a dream, but it all felt so vivid. Quinn threw her head back, eyes rolled to the back of her head, as Rachel’s sure, un-trembling hands slipped between Quinn’s sticky, humid thighs. Her skin felt ablaze, every nerve-ending awake from Rachel’s touch. She stroked the gusset of Quinn’s panties with her fingertips, and Quinn’s toes curled in a direct replication of what she felt inside her stomach.

She felt so tense, like a spring coiled tight, ready to leap, to unravel, and when Rachel’s hand slipped between the garter of her panties and her stomach, she shuddered. Her hips rose off the bed, and that motion dragged Rachel’s fingers against her core and it parted her wetness, slick in her eagerness. Rachel sucked in a breath and kissed Quinn again.

Quinn’s body undulated, keened, like an ocean wave that was degrees away from begging. Before she could utter a shaky, breathless plea, Rachel pushed her shirt up, past her heaving chest, to latch on a nipple. She wrestled Quinn’s panties off her hips so they went down her thighs, enough for her to fully cup her mound with her hands. She teased the tip of her finger where her wetness pooled, viscous and slippery and clung to Rachel’s fingers.

Sure, the way Rachel moved her fingers, how she dragged the tips of her digits against the aching core of Quinn’s body felt good to the point of explosion, but it was the way that Rachel looked at her – with possession, with greed, with eyes that drank from Quinn’s expressive pleasure – that threatened to do Quinn in. She clung to Rachel’s stiff shoulders, felt the tension and flex of her muscles against Quinn’s trembling frame.

Stars swam in Quinn’s vision. She gasped, body trembling.

Rachel drank from Quinn’s lips once again and breathed hotly against her lips. “Just looking at you shaking like this… It’s a reward in and of itself.” She murmured, teeth dragging along the line of Quinn’s jaw.

“You can do more than just look,” Quinn husked with a coy smirk.

Swallowing hard, Rachel removed her panties and straddled Quinn’s chiselled thighs. The wetness that drenched and covered her skin made Quinn hiss from its heat, and the expression of bliss that crossed Rachel’s face was enough for her body to clench around nothing in the gut-punch sensuality of it all. Rachel rocked her hips to grind against Quinn’s thighs, all while maintaining the tight, circular movements of her fingers against Quinn.

“Oh, right there,” Quinn gasped. She clung tight to Rachel who rocked her hips faster. She rutted against Quinn’s leg and Quinn’s eyes rolled with arousal. Together, with the blaze in their eyes locked like desire’s hand grasped around their throats, Quinn came from the sight of Rachel’s parted mouth, her flaming eyes, her soft, desperate moan of Quinn’s name.

A humid, heated haze enveloped them, even as Rachel collapsed on the bed beside Quinn. The blonde rolled so she reclined on her side, a hand resting on top of Rachel’s belly, her shirt having ridden up her body. A dozen questions and one pure statement rose in Quinn’s throat like a compulsion that she tamped down with a kiss to Rachel’s mouth. Rachel purred against the press of Quinn’s body and clung to the blonde.

Quinn’s eyes shot open. Her chest a heaving thing. She blinked out the rest of her dream, once so vivid, now nothing but a phantom in her vision. She squirmed. Her thighs felt as if they were stuck together. Beside her, Rachel continued to sleep, her even breaths a sound of relief to Quinn.

It was a dream. It was just a dream, but it was so sharp in the details that Quinn groped at her thighs, confident that she would find slickness there from Rachel humping her leg. Only to find smooth skin and no sign of dampness. Quinn rested her clenched fist against her heart and felt it pumping hard. The visions of her dream blinked out of her memory, one by one, her eyes heavy from exhaustion. Still, she remembered the desperation of Rachel’s moans echoing inside her head. Quinn closed her eyes and let it resound inside her. Who knows, perhaps this would be the only opportunity she would have to hear those sounds come out of Rachel’s lips.

“Fuck,” Quinn whispered to herself. She clamped her lips together and let Rachel’s back be the last thing she saw before she dissolved into sleep once more.

+

Quinn stirred awake to the sounds of movement, the fridge door closing, the creak of cabinet doors, and footsteps. Rachel paced and checked the inside of the drawers and cupboards only to be met with cavernous darkness. Quinn watched her in silence. She was dressed in the same clothes she had on last night, when they slept on the cramped couch together. It was a miracle that Rachel did not seem pissed off at her, which meant that Quinn did not buck her off in the night.

“You’re awake! I have bad news.”

The blonde rubbed the heel of her palm against her eyes and stopped. “What?”

“There’s nothing to eat here. I can’t even offer you a cup of coffee. But there’s a diner nearby if you’re not opposed to having breakfast with me, or if you don’t have anywhere else to be.”

Quinn sat up and stretched, her back aching from spending all night on the couch. “I never say no to diner food.”

“And it’ll be my treat, of course.”

“Because you’re a bigshot in Broadway now?”

“Correct,” Rachel grinned. “Did you sleep well?”

“As well as you can, when you’re sleeping on the couch and someone decided to squeeze in next to you,” Quinn answered as she stood up. She folded the blanket in a neat square and draped it over the couch’s arm. She excused herself to get dressed after she washed her face and brushed her teeth. She tied her hair back in a ponytail to hide the disheveled appearance until she had the opportunity to brush it. Rachel changed into a deep blue sweater and tight jeans, wore her boots, and with her arm around Quinn’s, they left the building.

They had a quick bout of breakfast where Quinn found out that Rachel was no longer a strict vegan, but was now a vegetarian. This resulted in both of them ordering French toast because it happened to be their favourite breakfast food, though Quinn had a side of sausages with hers and Rachel had some fresh fruit. Once polished, Quinn sipped at her coffee while Rachel stirred milk into hers.

“Last night,” Rachel said out of the blue. “When I kissed you, why did you kiss me back?”

“I thought you didn’t want to ever talk about it?” Quinn retorted.

“I didn’t say that. I said we didn’t have to talk about it last night after it _just_ happened.”

“Why did you kiss me in the first place?”

“No fair, I asked first,” Rachel pouted. She stopped stirring her coffee, loosened her shoulders, and sighed. “In all honesty, I wasn’t thinking. Not in clear words or thoughts that I can recount now, at least. But in my mind’s eye I felt like I stood at a junction where I can continue living my life never having kissed you, or to change all of that. It was this impulse that made me feel like my seventeen-year old self, you know?” Rachel looked up at Quinn who shook her head. “No?”

“I have _no_ idea how being Rachel Berry feels, okay? Let alone being a seventeen year old Rachel Berry.”

“Fair enough,” she laughed. “But I distinctly remembered this moment in high school. I asked Finn how it felt to kiss you. At that time, I didn’t exactly know why I asked that. I thought, and Finn did too, I’m sure, that I was comparing myself to your kissing skills.”

“Was this when we got mono?” Quinn asked with a frown. At Rachel’s embarrassed nod, Quinn huffed. “So that’s it then? You were just curious?”

“More or less,” Rachel said, easy as a breeze. “Now, answer my question. Why did you kiss me back?”

Quinn finished the rest of her coffee. “It seemed impolite not to.”

“But then afterwards, you said – ”

Quinn’s phone rang on the table beside her empty plate. Her screen showed a photo of Finn.

At the sight, both women’s eyes widened. Quinn picked up her phone and answered it. One glance at the expression on Rachel’s face told Quinn that she did not want her husband to know that she was in the same state as he was.

“Hey Quinn, I’m just calling because I didn’t think you got home last night and I got worried since you work at a bar and all, and people might have been drunk and tried to hurt you.”

“I’m fine, Finn. I saw an old friend last night so I had a few drinks with her.”

“Oh! Cool, that’s good. And you slept over and stuff?”

“To avoid driving under the influence, yes.”

“Smart. Okay, I’ll see you when you get home.”

“Thanks for checking up on me. You didn’t have to do that.”

“We’re neighbours! That’s what good neighbours do.”

Quinn thanked him again before she hung up. With a sigh, she looked at Rachel who appeared relieved. It was that expression that fortified in Quinn’s mind that what transpired between her and Rachel was nothing but an impure moment, fleeting and should never happen again judging from the guilt that permeated Quinn’s veins and the fear in Rachel’s eyes. It was fear of being found out, she was sure of it. The stakes were higher now, too.

Finn and Rachel got married a year after high school in a whirlwind of events most of which Quinn was not present for. And it was a good thing too, because she would have thrown herself into the act of preventing this mistake from happening, the same way she tried her damn hardest during their senior year. When she was invited to the wedding, she was tempted not to go once again. But she went anyway.

Why? Because Rachel asked.

And to top it all off, there was nothing quite like the sting of failure and heartbreak rubbed up against your face like a bouquet tossed in your direction.

“I better go. I have things I need to do today,” Quinn said, wiping her mouth with a napkin before rising to her feet. “Thanks for breakfast. And don’t worry – I won’t tell Finn that you’re here. That’s your business and I’m staying out of it.”

Rachel nodded. “Thanks.”

Before anything else could be said, Quinn took her things and left Rachel, still nursing her half-consumed cup of now-tepid coffee. She walked back towards the direction of Isle L and into the side street where she parked her car and drove home.


	2. Chapter 2

The sun was a red-hot thrumming thing that pulsed on Quinn’s brow when she emerged out of her car. Right on cue, Finn stepped out of his house to check the contents of the mailbox. He wore his usual work uniform, a navy blue jumpsuit streaked with grease. He caught sight of Quinn and waved towards her, a packet of junk mail in his hand that he then threw into the recycling bin.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Finn said with a laugh.

“You’re late. Usually you’re at work by now.”

“There’s not much to do at the tire shop today so I thought I’d sleep in. How was last night? Had fun with your friend?”

Quinn looked him in the eyes. Tried not to feel the guilt swell in her chest. The ghost of Rachel’s lips on hers, her back pressed against her chest all night. The phantom effects of the dream on her body and how it made her legs weak. “I did, yes.”

“I got a call from Rachel just now. Before you pulled up,” Finn said, and at the mention of his wife’s name, Quinn’s palms began to sweat. “She said she’s coming home tonight. So _please,_ please, will you have dinner with us? I’ll bring home pizza! We can talk about high school, glee club – you know, the good old days!”

Quinn winced and repeated the same argument she had been using against Finn, except this time, her refusals seemed hollow. In her ears, the guilt rang evident and true. “Do you really want me around on the night your _wife_ comes home? Don’t you want some alone time with her after not seeing her for many months?”

“She’ll be here for a week or two, so we have all the time then.” Finn shrugged.

She sighed. “Sure, Finn. I’d love to.”

He pumped his fist and grinned. “Sweet! Drop by around seven, okay? I’m picking her up at the airport at six.”

They took their separate ways. Quinn leaned against the front door as soon as she closed it. Her temples throbbed with the remnants of alcohol that lingered in her body. She took a quick shower, kept her mind pleasantly blank because she just knew that if she allowed the sliver of a thought that had anything to do with _Rachel_ , she would do nothing but think about her.

She brushed her teeth. She drank water until the pulsing in her temples’ dissipated into quiet. She looked at her laptop and saw that she received an email back from her professor’s friend, the one in search for a theatre assistant, asking if Quinn was available for a phone call at ten in the morning, ‘just to chat’.  
  


She sent a reply agreeing with the time, hoping that her response was not too late since it was quarter to ten. Quinn got dressed in sweatpants and her favourite Yale sweater. Stuck earphones into her ears and started to pace the length of her house, from the living room to the kitchen, around the dining table once, then to the foyer, and back into the living room. She let her phone ring once before she answered.

“Hi Quinn! It’s Elaine, the director for Phoenix Theatre. How are you this morning?”

“Hi! I’m having a great morning so far though I had a late night. Thanks for being available on such short notice.”

“No worries – that’s just how theatre time works. The day starts during the late afternoon for us. I hope you don’t think this is some kind of stiff, formal interview. I’m not going to ask for your weaknesses, things like that. I would like to know though – what was the last stage production you watched?”

Quinn blinked. “That would have to be a student production of Beckett’s _Endgame_.”

They discussed the play at length to the point that Quinn stopped pacing altogether. She sat on the couch, her feet propped up on the coffee table. They must have discussed the play for upwards of half an hour.

“Now I’m curious – what’s a play you would want to produce? Barring budget concerns or whatever else.” Elaine asked.

Quinn paused for a beat and let out a soft laugh. “I don’t know why, but do you know this play by Sarah Ruhl? It’s called _In the Next Room_ ,” she bit back a smile. “Or The Vibrator Play.”

“Yes! I’ve read it, but have never seen it performed.”

“It’s the first title that popped into my head. I haven’t read it since my second year in college so it wasn’t a matter of freshness. I think a large part of it has to do with the tenderness of the final scene and how it stayed with me. How love can be found again between two people who thought they have lost the ability for it.”

For a moment, both of them were quiet. Quinn worried that she botched it somehow by being unclear, by not explaining enough. She heard a soft sigh through the phone before Elaine spoke once again. “Thank you for your thoughts, Quinn. And I would love to talk to you about this play some more but unfortunately, I have to go.”

“That’s okay – thank you for making the time to call. I’m sure you’re a busy person.”

They bade each other goodbye and Elaine hung up. Quinn popped the earphones off and sighed, eyes trained upwards at the ceiling. The very weight of her body, the rising of thoughts in the forefront of her consciousness, could be distinctly felt that she shot up to her feet and rushed to her room. For as long as possible, she wanted to run away from her thoughts.

Quinn spent a better chunk of the day avoiding an interior monologue with herself. She watched movies, random shows on cable television, listened to music, and read books. Each attempt at distraction lasted for an hour at most, and then it was always a great leap to another thing that could keep her attention. Three hours past noon, she gathered the cocktail gowns she wore for her performances to take to the dry cleaners.

The cars in the strip mall parking lot crowded around the local shopping mall so Quinn managed to find a parking space right in front of the cleaners. She offered up her clothes and left to walk around the mall where she spent a lot of time hanging out as a teenager with Brittany and Santana. She walked inside the grocery store to buy some snacks to bring to this dinner with Finn and Rachel. Since it was to be a casual affair, she bought a variety of chips, dips, and salsas. She thought twice at first but eventually picked up a six-pack of beer. She paid for her items and put them away in the trunk of her car. Her stomach rumbled when she realized that she hadn’t had lunch, so she stopped by a coffee shop to order an iced coffee and a warmed cheese croissant.

She took a seat by the shop window. Quinn remembered a time when Santana, unsure on what to get Brittany for her birthday, spent hours in the parking lot sounding off ideas with Quinn, their feet propped up against the dashboard of Quinn’s car, while she listened and vetoed gift ideas.

Someone called her on her phone. It was Santana.

“I was just thinking about you,” Quinn chirped while she stirred the ice cubes in her coffee.

“Okay, weirdo. How’s Lima?”

“What do you expect? Nothing different. Well, actually. Do you remember my next-door neighbour?”

“Yeah, the creepy old guy who we would always see peeking at us from his kitchen window while we were swimming at your pool? He left?”

“My mom said he died. They found him stuck among the hedges wearing nothing but a bathrobe on.”

“ _Yikes_. Who are your new neighbours now?”

Quinn paused. Swallowed back a sip of her drink. “Finn and Rachel.”

Silence, and then a long stream of a breath. “How the _hell_ did they manage to afford to live in _your_ neighbourhood?”

“At first I thought it was thanks to Rachel’s Broadway money but I really have no idea – want me to ask?”

Santana scoffed. “Not fucking really.” She was quiet, and then, “does that mean you saw Rachel again?”

Quinn rubbed her temples and leaned back on her chair, her croissant left half-eaten. The underlying suggestion in Santana’s question was plenty obvious, and the line of questioning was what she tried to avoid for most of the day. As always, Santana had her ways of cutting through the meat and to the bone of it. For that moment, Quinn wished she never called so there would be no need to think, no need to make sense of the hazy cloud of feelings that came with seeing Rachel again.

“It’s just,” Santana continued, “the last time we saw her – at her wedding – you didn’t look too happy. I thought it was just because you’re pissed that after all that effort you put into stopping their first wedding, they went and did it anyway.”

“That’s part of it. But they’ve been married for five years now, so that’s not really the issue anymore. I mean – ”

On the other line, she heard Santana snicker. A sort of hiccuping sound that amused Quinn. “You sound like you’re going through puberty.” In a high-pitched mockery of the direction Quinn’s voice took, she mimicked, “ _they’ve been married for five years now!_ I asked you a simple yes or no question, Quinn.”

She winced. Saw the way Santana rolled her eyes in her mind’s eye. “Yes, I saw her.”

“And? How did that go?”

“I thought you’re only asking me a yes or no question?”

“Don’t be difficult,” Santana grumbled.

“What do you want me to say? It went as well as anyone could expect. I didn’t collapse to my knees and professed my undying love or anything _that_ dramatic. She just happened to see me while I was working, and... we had a couple of drinks.” Quinn hesitated whether to continue disclosing the events of that night when she herself had not had the time to think all of it through. Not the part where Rachel had a hotel room in the city where her husband lived. Not the part where she kissed her. And definitely not the part where Quinn kissed her back.

“I feel like there’s more to that story. There’s something juicy you’re leaving out – I can feel it – but I don’t blame you for not telling me anything – yet,” Santana said. “Anyway, that’s it. I just wanted to check up on you and you seem to be doing just fine. Considering you’re back there and all.”

For a quick beat, Quinn was quiet before out of the blue, she asked. “If I move to New York, will you let me sleep on your couch?”

“Hell yeah, bitch. You don’t even have to ask. You could just show up at my door. I’ll grumble a little, but sure, I’d let you mooch on my couch.”

Quinn chuckled and shook her head. “Right. Thanks, Tana.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Say hi to Brittany for me.”

“Tell her yourself, you asshole. I love you, bye.” She hung up with an immediacy, as if the phone was on fire. Typical Santana.

Reinvigorated by her best friend’s concern, Quinn finished her drink and her snack. She stepped out of the café, less afraid now to confront the things that haunted her. She picked up her dry cleaning and on her way back to her car, she passed by a flower shop. The storefront teemed with bouquets and pots of pre-planted foliage. The flagstones were darkened, slick from the bout of watering the store’s owner was currently doing. She finished hosing down the pots of marigolds when she greeted Quinn while she admired the flowers.

Quinn drove back home, the bouquet of flowers perched on the front seat with her, the soft, powder white petals damp and beaded with drops of water. She carried her purchases into her house just as the clock struck half past six. Rushing indoors, Quinn put her clothes inside her dresser and stared at her other clothes, at a loss for what to wear.

She must have spent a good twenty minutes picking and choosing between this dress or that skirt, but eventually she settled on a long, flowing navy blue skirt with thin diagonal stripes and a loose white shirt that she tucked into her skirt’s waistband. She applied some makeup, decided against putting lipstick on, and pinned her hair in a bun. Carefree tendrils of darker blonde hair curved along Quinn’s nape. She put the bags of chips into a tote bag, carried the pack of beer, and cradled the bouquet of flowers in one arm. With her elbow, she rang the doorbell of Finn and Rachel’s house.

It was a fifty-fifty chance for Rachel to answer the door and it was just her luck that she won that gamble, with the odds the way they were.

“Quinn! Hi! Come in!” She greeted, opening the door wider and stepping aside. Quinn waved at Finn who was currently in the kitchen, in clear view from the foyer. Stacks of pizza boxes sat on their breakfast island. “I haven’t seen you in so long!”

“Here, these are for you,” Quinn offered the bouquet. “It’s nice to see you too. It’s been years.”

Rachel smiled and embraced the bouquet. “These are beautiful,” she said, without looking at the flowers and the intricate arrangement of the ferns and the greenery, how it interlaced with the shades of pink and yellows of the petals. She looked Quinn dead in the eye and that was that. She turned towards the kitchen to find a vase for the flowers. In the open kitchen, the rich aroma of melted cheese, tomatoes, spices, and herbs permeated the air.

“I gave Rachel flowers so it’s only fair you get something too,” Quinn held up the beer cans.

“Thanks, Quinn. And you got the fancy brand too,” he took the offering and cracked one open. He took deep swig and sighed. “Cheers.”

Their house gave the impression that it was straight out of a magazine catalogue, for which Quinn did not blame them. Given that Rachel was hardly in Ohio, that likely meant that it fell upon Finn to take care of the house. The walls were painted a warm-toned cream colour. Photographs of the two of them, their parents, of glee club hung on the walls. A framed playbill that had Rachel on the cover as Christine Daaé with the Phantom’s arms encasing her hung beside their wedding photograph.

Everything was simply decorated – almost barren. In the living room, Quinn sat on the center couch followed by Finn carrying the pizza boxes in one arm and his beer in his free hand. He sat on an armchair while Rachel sat on the couch beside Quinn.

“You haven’t been over before, right?” Finn asked. He brimmed with pride, happy to have a house he could call his own. Quinn could see it in the easy way he sank into his seat, the seemingly careless gravity of his movements which were a direct contrast to his wife’s. Rachel sat on the edge of the couch, knees knocked together. “I didn’t think so – when we bought the house you were at Yale still. Not a lot of people from high school went to our house-warming party because everyone was out of the state and all, but Mr. Schue went! And a few neighbours.”

“My mom mentioned something like that but it didn’t really register. I was up to my head in work and assignments.”

Rachel shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal, anyway.”

Finn chewed his bottom lip and Quinn flinched. Finn was so _proud_ , but Rachel was so quick to brush him off that Quinn felt sorry for Finn. Instead of allowing the awkwardness linger, Quinn leapt in to discuss a different topic. “So, how’s the married life between you two? Must be exciting, right?”

The tense three second silence was enough to make Quinn regret every choice she made that brought her to this very moment. It was Rachel who snapped out of it first as she immediately began to sing Finn praises. How good a boyf – _husband_ he was.

A slip that rang in Quinn’s head like the toll the opposite of wedding bells.

She watched the couple. Finn avoided looking at Rachel, and Rachel avoided looking at Finn. Whenever they looked at each other, it was as if they looked at something else – something beyond and a little to the left of their spouse.

“How was Yale, Quinn? Did you get up to interesting things while you were at an entirely different state?” Finn wondered.

“I had a pretty average college experience, I think,” Quinn said. “I acted in some plays for school, even helped produce some of them. I worked in the campus bookstore, went to parties. You know, the usual.”

Finn chuckled and Quinn swore there was a hint of bitterness to his tone. “I wouldn’t know – I didn’t go to college.”

“I meant in the way movies depict it. Though maybe not as exciting.”

“I guess what we’re both really curious about was whether you dated anyone interesting,” Rachel quipped. Quinn threw her a sideways glance and swallowed a few mouthfuls of her beer before answering.

“Nothing too serious. The longest relationship I had lasted for a year and some months. But we’re still good friends.”

Finn raised a playful brow. “Oh yeah? What’s his name?”

“Her name is Katie.”

Quinn expected the reaction – from Finn, especially. How his eyes bugged out and how he started coughing out what sounds like half of his lung. He pounded at his chest and wiped his mouth and nose and the beer that drizzled down to his scruffy chin. “Huh. I didn’t expect that. _At all_.”

On the other hand, Rachel had a neutral expression but an expressive glint in her features. Her eyes, or so it seemed to Quinn, looked brighter than usual. Alert. Knowing.

They talked for a few hours, eating and drinking and laughing out loud as memories half-forgotten rose to the forefront of their minds. It neared eleven at night when Finn yawned until tears formed in the corners of his eyes. He rose up, rubbed his stomach muscles that was sore from laughing far too much.

“I better head on up to bed – work tomorrow. It was nice hanging out with you again, Quinn. I really missed it. We should do this more often, but maybe with not too much drinking.”

Quinn stood to give him a hug. “Maybe next time just drink some juice.”

Finn released Quinn and dipped down to kiss Rachel on the cheek, his lips brushing the line of her jaw ever so lightly before he disappeared up the stairs. The sound of his footsteps and of the door closing followed. In the silence of the living room where Quinn felt alien, foreign, strange, she stood alone with the woman that always provoked complications in her thoughts, in her digestive system, and in the beating of her heart. Rachel rose to her feet as well, carried the bottle of wine and the glass she had been drinking from for most of the night.

“Let’s go outside. I could use some fresh air.”

Quinn followed Rachel to the front porch and together they sat on the cushioned patio swing. The lateness of the hour blanketed the streets in a hush. The cool early autumn breeze rustled the trees and shook the faded green and yellowed leaves to carpet the trimmed hedges and manicured front lawn of the house. Ever so often, a car would drive past, leaving a trail of hazy red taillights in its wake.

Rachel drew her knees up to her chest as the seat rocked back and forth. Quinn welcomed the lower temperature of the night as she dabbed the sweat from her brow.

“So, _is_ married life treating you right?” Quinn asked, looking askance at Rachel who simply chuckled and drained the riesling from her wine glass.

“It’s definitely treating me in a weird way. It’s not what I expected, that’s all. I didn’t expect to have a Broadway career so soon so I didn’t think I’d be away from him for most of the time.”

“Why don’t you both just move to New York? I feel like that would be less stressful for both of you, and you wouldn’t have to fly back and forth all the time.”

Rachel sighed and rested her head against the brace of the porch swing. “Finn… He doesn’t like change. And moving out of his home state and being away from his family, his mom, is too big of a change for him.”

Quinn released a soft breath. “I hate to say I told you so,” she muttered under her breath, despite knowing full well that Rachel could hear her. To her surprise, Rachel only laughed instead of being defensive – which Quinn expected her to be.

“There are more interesting things to discuss than my marriage. Like your dating life,” Rachel grinned. “So, Katie, huh? Would you like to share with the class?”

“She’s not the only girlfriend I had, you know. She was just the one I had for the longest duration.”

“Which makes her the most interesting if Quinn Fabray dated her for a decent amount of time.”

“I guess so. But I mean, what’s to tell?”

“How you met, what was she like? And why did you break up?”

Quinn let air gather in her mouth so her cheeks bulged like a chipmunk’s before she released it in a steady stream, her lips puckered. “Well, let’s see. We met in a Elizabethan Drama class. She wasn’t a theatre major. She was in the English program at Yale and there was a course that both programs must take and we wound up in the same group. We had to reenact a scene from _Twelfth Night_ for a grade and we just hit it off from there.”

“And you just started dating right off the bat?”

“No,” Quinn said, scowling a little. “I made a promise to myself to take it slow with the dating because I was more excited to be out of Lima than anything else. We were friends for a couple of months, then she invited me to watch her in some kind of Battle of the Bands event. She had a band and she played the bass. And sings.”

That tidbit of information changed Rachel’s attitude entirely. She flipped her long dark hair and combed it in that haughty, competitive way of hers. She fumed, nostrils flaring ever so slightly. “Is that so? Is she good?”

Quinn smirked. “As you, you mean?”

Rachel flushed and shrugged in an attempt to be nonchalant about it.

“No, she’s not. But only because you’ve been singing since you could speak and have been training for it your whole life. She just sings for fun. Plus, you sing a different genre.”

“Oh, well,” Rachel sank a bit. “That’s understandable, I suppose.”

“Why do you suddenly look disappointed?” Quinn asked, nudging Rachel with her shoulder. “Was it because I said she wasn’t as good as you?”

“I was hoping I could have a new rival. Someone to out-sing for your love or something to that effect.”

Quinn rolled her eyes. Tried not to let the implication consume her – not yet. “No need for that. We broke up, after all.”

“That doesn’t always mean you are no longer in love with your ex just because you two aren’t together anymore.” Rachel said, looking off towards the direction of the street. She settled deeper into the couch, her palms hidden by her sleeves cupped around the bulb of her wine glass, now emptied.

“Are you speaking from experience?”

“Not at all,” Rachel met Quinn’s gaze and smiled. “So?”

“We broke up because she wanted to do a Masters in Oxford and we didn’t think our relationship is very compatible, long-distance-wise, that’s all. Nothing too tragic.”

Rachel looked at Quinn with stark brown eyes that caught the low glow of the porch lights. It seemed to absorb all the light in the world, or Quinn could only really look at her eyes and not register anything else that existed in the here and now. All her attention absorbed by Rachel’s eyes.

“And you don’t love her anymore?”

“Why are you so hung up on my feelings for my ex? It’s not like it matters,” Quinn asked. Frustration crept in her tone.

How could Rachel ask these things that carried with them all these layers of implication that remained unclear to Quinn? How could she think to ask if Quinn still loved her ex and sit here beside her, all wide-eyed, looking the way she did? How could she stand to kiss Quinn and not know how it seized her body like panic, like gravity, the weight of love pinning her down?

“It does matter! It does!” Rachel insisted, slapping her knee with fierce indignance.

Quinn raised her brow. “Why?”

“So I can help you find love, of course!”

“And what would you possibly know about love?” Quinn snapped.

The effect of her words on Rachel were immediate. The dark-haired woman’s brow furrowed and she seemed to cave into herself. Quinn looked away towards the distant taillights of the car that passed them by, surrounded by a hush of willful breathing. She bit her tongue to refuse the impulse to apologize, knowing full well that she would not mean it.

It wasn’t that she did not believe that Rachel knew nothing about love – it was more so the reminder that she loves Rachel and that Rachel had _no idea_ , no awareness of the context whatsoever, so what measly advice that would pass from her lips would be trite and off the mark, no matter what.

Rachel knew _nothing_ about Quinn’s love for her – that was it.

“You’re right, I don’t know a lot about love.”

“I’m not trying to diminish the love that you know. If you love Finn, then you love him. I’m not contesting that.”

“But you just don’t want my help finding the kind of love I know of,” Rachel said, pouting. Quinn sighed and palmed her forehead. “Quinn, I’m kidding.”

They dropped the subject of love immediately, tense as the topic was. They discussed Rachel’s life in New York, Quinn’s experiences in New Haven.

“I better go home. It’s pretty late,” Quinn said after she watched Rachel yawn for the fifth time within the space of a few minutes. She rose to her feet and stretched from having been in the same position for about an hour. The porch swing wobbled and Rachel rose as well. “Thanks for dinner.”

“It was all Finn’s idea. Let me walk you to your house.”

Quinn laughed and shook her head. “I live two minutes away.”

“Fine, I admit it,” Rachel swept her hair back, all diva dramatics. “I don’t want to stop talking with you just yet. I’ve missed you so much.”

“Yes, well,” Quinn stammered and scuffed her shoes against the polished deck. The late hour could be read in the way Rachel’s eyes remained half-lidded but still as bright as if it was morning, the streetlamps acting as the stark orange of the sun. Quinn could look into her eyes and imagine all the dawning of new days all she wanted, but a part of her was acutely aware that the likelihood of change was scant and rare.

“Let me walk you home,” Rachel said again, her hand reaching out for Quinn’s, and she let the other woman take it in hers. “Who knows what might happen between my front porch and yours. That’s dropping off a friend at their house 101: wait until they are fully inside their house before driving them away.”

“Sure, if it’ll make you happy.” Quinn conceded.

“It will,” Rachel said with a smile.

Together they walked the length of the distance between Rachel’s front door and Quinn’s. She kept attempting to count the steps but every breathy sigh from Rachel made her lose count. On Quinn’s front steps, the porch lights triggered by a timer illuminated the area. It was a short walk but the calm and the quiet was a bubble of eternity Quinn longed to stay within.

“Good night Quinn,” Rachel whispered with a smile that tugged at the frays of Quinn’s lungs. “Sleep well, okay?”

“I’m not going to go inside until you’re at _your_ front door. Who knows what’ll happen?”

Rachel giggled and shook her head. “Okay, okay. Use my logic against me, why don’t you?”

She rose to the tips of her toes. Kissed the warm plane of Quinn’s cheek. She darted down the steps and Quinn kept her eyes on her figure as it traversed the sidewalk, up her driveway. They stood looking at each other from their respective porches. Rachel waved, and Quinn waved back. They opened their storm doors and each went into the bowels of their dimly lit houses.

The house with its dark walls covered by a faint slant of light, was wrapped in a hush that encroached on loneliness.

Quinn pressed her back against the front door and palmed her cheekbones, sore from smiling far too much. She touched where Rachel’s lips made contact and huffed over the queasy lurch of her stomach. If a kiss on the cheek could undo her like this, who knows how far Quinn would careen into the abyss of her own making?

The occurrence of _that dream_ she had after Rachel – _mistakenly, drunkenly_ – kissed her was not lost on her either.

She was sure that she should not feel this way – especially not for a married woman – especially not for Rachel. She sighed, unsure of what to do.


	3. Chapter 3

With the addition of Rachel’s presence in the neighbourhood, Quinn formed a new routine. Gone were the days of waking up near eleven in the morning, what with Rachel knocking at her door as early as six in the morning dressed in black shorts and a tanktop, her hair in a ponytail, asking if Quinn wanted to go for a run.

“Don’t you have an elliptical so you don’t have to go do this sort of thing?” Quinn yawned, her baggy shirt falling off her shoulder. She tied her shoes and stretched her legs to warm them up.

“Yes, but exercising is always more fun with company!”

At first Quinn lagged behind while Rachel pranced ahead, her hair swaying back and forth while tied in its ponytail. Not to mention – and Quinn felt like such a pervert to be looking like this – the way Rachel’s sweat made the small hairs on the nape of her neck cling to her skin made Quinn’s breath catch against her throat. The thought of the back of Rachel’s neck, the pleasant ring of her laughter was enough to motivate Quinn and keep running with the woman every morning.

Quinn and Rachel spent time together almost daily. It did not disrupt Quinn’s habits, however. She still continued to read pages upon pages of plays and novels, pencil in hand to make her notes. Though recently she had been doing it all with Rachel in the same room, doing the same thing. Most days they would be out on Quinn’s porch, hidden under the shade of the pergola with vines providing shade from the sun, but some days they would read on the couch. Sometimes with Rachel’s head on Quinn’s lap.

During the times Quinn had to work, Rachel would come with her to Isle L some nights, sit in the audience, and chat with the bar’s patrons. Finn, knowing this, suggested that he should maybe try to go, just so see Quinn perform, again citing how he had not seen her perform in such a long time. But Rachel was quick to shake her head.

“Isle L is a women’s bar. If a man shows up there, they might feel like they can’t be their most authentic selves.”

Finn’s shoulders sagged but he nodded regardless.

“You hear me sing all the time though. Karaoke nights not enough for you?” Quinn teased, reaching up to ruffle Finn’s hair.

With Rachel, Quinn walked into Isle L one cold autumn night, their cheeks tinged pink and their breaths forming clouds around them. They entered the warmth of the building. The bar was already open though there were only a handful of patrons. The rush of customers had yet to arrive. Ella made and poured out drinks for one or two regulars while Vick organized the bottles lined in an array on the shelf behind the bar. Cal wiped down the surfaces of the dinged wooden top of the tables. All of them greeted Quinn and Rachel as they passed by.

The look Vick directed towards Quinn was not lost on her but she pointedly ignored it while Rachel followed her into her makeshift dressing room. Inside, Quinn changed into a midnight blue dress with thin straps and flowed into a long train that trailed a few feet behind a folding screen. She emerged and Rachel stared at her with bright, wondering eyes.

“Beautiful, as always,” Rachel said with a smile.

“You say that all the time,” Quinn said with a roll of her eyes, but the compliment never failed to warm her insides.

“It doesn’t make it any less true.”

Rachel ushered Quinn to sit on the stool while she applied Quinn’s makeup for her. Even though the blonde had been taking care of her wardrobe by herself since she started working as the lounge singer. The tips of Rachel’s fingers caressed the nape of Quinn’s neck, the line of her jaw and it sent a ripple of a shudder up her spine. Rachel locked eyes at Quinn through the mirror.

“I’ll see you out there – in my usual spot. Front and centre,” she beamed before turning to leave Quinn alone. She took that moment of silence to calm her racing heart.

Minutes later, a soft knock interrupted the emptiness of her brain. Vick nudged the door open and leaned against the doorframe.

“Are you two a thing now?” She asked. Always quick to the chase and gruff about it, too.

“No – last time I checked, she’s still married. Why would you even think that?”

“Because you two have been coming in here, thick as thieves – or however the saying goes – like two lovers _in love_ – for a handful of times now and even an old fogey like me can tell something’s goin’ on.”

Brow raised, Quinn spun in her seat to face Vick. She had a frown on her features, the wrinkles on her forehead became more prominent. Worry sagged her brown cheeks as she rubbed her jaw.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Quinn stated.

“Don’t play dumb,” Vick said with a sigh. “But you’re an adult woman and you know what you’re doing. I know that – I really do. But she still has the glint of gold on that finger of hers, Quinn. You and I can see that, clear as day. I just don’t want you getting into any trouble. I won’t bring this up again, but… play it safe.”

“You don’t think that bothers me too?” Quinn said quietly, her vision filled with the fabric of her dress, her open palms. “Every time I look at her, I feel like what I’m doing is wrong. I feel _guilty_ about something and I know it’s because of how I feel. But I can’t really help it because she’s _right there_ and the fool in me insists that no, I don’t mind pressing on the raw exposed nerve of my feelings, but…” Quinn stared absently at the exposed bricks that made up the walls of her dressing room, only vaguely aware now that Vick still lurked in the edges of her vision.

“I know you’ll do the right thing, Quinn.” The bar’s proprietor murmured. She sighed once again and left Quinn alone where the silence was more raucous than ever. It was true, and Vick observed right – on Quinn’s end, anyway.

All the time she spent with Rachel failed to diminish what Quinn could only describe as birds ransacking the walls of her stomach. It was not as if this sensation bothered her the entire time she was with Rachel – she liked to believe that she acted normally whenever they were together.

It was always afterwards – in the comfort of being alone, when she would replay the events of Rachel’s presence that Quinn would realize that she was not as unaffected as she needed herself to believe.

She steeled herself and emerged out of the dressing room. She walked towards the main space of the bar and climbed the stage. Lost herself in the songs of her set. Eyes occasionally wandering in Rachel’s direction, she who looked at Quinn with wonder. She had seen that look in Rachel’s eyes years before, in high school, whenever Finn sang with and to her. That was how Quinn knew that there was no way that Rachel could love her for who she is when all she saw in Quinn was the light of performance, of talent, of duet partner potentiality.

Quinn stepped off the stage to the sound of applause after she sang her heart out through her set list. Made a beeline towards the bar where Rachel sat waiting with two tall tankards of beer.

“I don’t think I’ll drink tonight. Alcohol makes me do questionable things,” Quinn perched herself on top of a stool and asked for water instead. “And no offense, but I’m sick of feeling tipsy most days.”

“I understand but I don’t think you’ve done anything questionable when you drank, Quinn.”

Quinn opened her mouth to speak but chose not to bring it up at that moment. The kiss, as much as she would love to forget about it, still occurred in a flashback, a replay. It existed in the back of her mind – constantly played, its vision as clear as the moment it happened. Whenever she found herself drifting off to sleep or spaced out and thinking about nothing in particular, the memory of Rachel’s whisky-flavoured lips snapped her into reality, stomach lurching as if falling while in a dream.

Instead, she harkened back to when they were sixteen. “You do remember that I got pregnant when I had a wine cooler, right?”

“Oh! You went to _Puck_ which was the questionable part of that decision – and you haven’t had a drink when you decided _that_ ,” Rachel said, sticking out her tongue.

As they chatted, a few patrons passed by to thank Quinn for her marvelous set. A woman with dark hair, eyes lined with red, passed by. She wore a red lace top that wrapped high around the column of her slender neck that was sheer in some places. She caught Quinn’s eye. She sat a few stools behind Rachel. The low light of the bar paired with the woman’s dark skin seemed to demand Quinn’s attention. She waved at Quinn with delicate fingertips and raised her martini glass as she took a sip.

With the way the woman eyed her, Quinn felt a warm shudder travel up the length of her spine. Between rows of white teeth, the woman held a green olive that she sank her teeth into as it disappeared inside her mouth, her red lips vibrant against her smile. She jerked her head towards the direction of the dark, barely lit hallway that led to the bathrooms. She rose from her seat and sauntered away.

“I’m gonna – bathroom,” Quinn stammered out. She straightened her dress and made her way to the hallway that was presently empty save for the woman leaning against the wall, one leg propped against the wall behind her.

“Hi,” she murmured, her voice low and smooth that caressed Quinn’s nape. “I really like your set. It has such a classy vibe.”

“Thanks. I feel like you can never go wrong with classic jazz,” Quinn said through flushed cheeks.

“Your name is Quinn, right? I heard from the bartender. I’m Lucille,” she held out her hand, fingernails painted the same seductive red as her lips. Quinn took her hand and shook it.

“Nice to meet you,” Quinn said. She was completely sober but something about being in a dark hallway with a beautiful woman filled her head with something like effervescence. “Is it your first time here?”

“Mmhmm. You could say I’m a tourist and I’m looking for some fun,” Lucille kicked off against the wall to stand dangerously close to Quinn, her gleaming dark brown eyes half-lidded, her lips curled into a delectable smile. A hand curled around Quinn’s exposed nape, fingers threaded through blonde tendrils of hair. Her breath smelled like gin, like vermouth. She guided Quinn’s hand around her curvy waist, bidding her to pull her close.

Which Quinn did. She tugged her until they were pressed body to body, hot breath intermingling. Lucille smirked and she kissed Quinn, shyly and close-lipped at first, until Quinn looped her arm around her waist and let out a breathy sigh.

It was the unfamiliar that thrilled Quinn. Lucille smelled of cinnamon and it caught in her nose like a drug. She felt the curl of Lucille’s lips against her own as she kissed her more, deeper. Felt the damp touch of her tongue against her teeth.

Time slowed, or so it seemed, but her pulse raged on. Quinn drew back, breathless and with a reeling head. “S-sorry. I’m not – I don’t know if – ”

“It’s okay,” Lucille laughed softly. She caressed Quinn’s cheek and gave it a light tap. She took a step back to create a gap between herself and Quinn. “Is it because of that one you’re with? The one who wouldn’t stop talking?”

Quinn chuckled. “You could say that.”

“Say no more,” she pulled out a scrap of paper from her pocket along with a pen. She scribbled something on it. She locked eyes with Quinn as she pressed her mouth against it to leave the mark of her lipstick before she tucked the paper into Quinn’s hand. “But just in case.”

Lucille winked and left Quinn in that darkened hallway. One peek at the paper was enough: it was her phone number.

Quinn’s throat flexed and she pocketed the number. Why did she stop? Why did she put an end to it? It was not guilt – she did not owe Rachel anything, and it wasn’t as if Lucille was asking for untethered devotion. But anything casual never seemed to be as easy anymore, not even when what little hope she had with Rachel seemed more minuscule than before.

But this was not about reciprocity. It was about immersing herself into the full breadth of her feelings – something she had not done when she was younger. Before, it was all denial, all repression. Now, she had the opportunity to feel the love that bubbled and swelled inside her without hindrance, without restraint.

And though it might hurt, it was okay because it was _her_ love, and hers alone.

She stepped into the bathroom to clear her head and cool down, to inspect Lucille’s lipstick that transferred to her own mouth. She wiped lips clean, went to her backstage dressing area to change into her casual clothes before she went back to the main area of the bar.

“What took you so long?” Rachel asked.

“I was just – feeling a little queasy.”

“Oh no,” Rachel looked at her in worry. “Do you want to go home?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” Rachel paid her tab despite Vick’s protests. “Let’s go.”

It was as if the universe was trying to tell Quinn something. There was Vick with her warning looks, and then there was Lucille. Not to mention the ever present guilt, how she could be hurting Finn behind his back. Quinn always recalled how Finn called her selfish, and here she was, considering whether he was right, all along.

The cold autumn air greeted them with its forceful caress. Rachel wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck, pulled her coat tighter around her body. As they walked towards the direction where Quinn parked her car, the little side street with the old houses and tree-lined boulevards. Rachel shivered again.

Quinn reached behind Rachel to rub the curves of her shoulders in concern. “Cold?”

Rachel beamed up at her. Despite the lateness of the hour, the scant light from the streetlamps, it was as if the sun rose all of a sudden. She wrapped her arms around Quinn’s waist and nestled closer to her torso. “With you here? Never.”

With Rachel in Quinn’s arms… Selfish she may be, it was enough to ignore all of the signs presented to her just to stay one minute longer by Rachel’s side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't know if this segment fits in chapter 2 or chapter 4 so I isolated it into its own. And that's why it's short!


	4. Chapter 4

On nights when Quinn did not have to work at Isle L, she had dinner with Finn and Rachel. It still felt odd to be caught in between them. Like walking through an unseen spider’s web – Quinn could not tell what it was she walked into until she felt the odd creeping across her bare arm.

Still, it was strangely comforting to spend time with other people, even though they were _Finn and Rachel_. Quinn could already imagine how Santana would react if she knew how Quinn spent her Thursday nights: sitting in between Finn and Rachel on the couch, eating popcorn and watching whatever caught their attention.

Try as she might, Quinn could not ignore the strange churning in her stomach whenever she watched Finn and Rachel interact when they had no idea she was paying them any attention. There was a hesitation in their interactions. No warmth of familiarity. No casual contact that seemed part and parcel between married couples. In what time she spent around her two friends, Quinn did not remember seeing them kiss each other on the lips. Not once, and not since their wedding.

Not that it mattered. Maybe they were just being polite for Quinn’s sake.

Some nights, they get to talking about not just glee club but McKinley High as a whole. It was mid-September and school had begun. On Finn’s downtime, he visited their old high school often to help out Mr. Schue who was now the principal. Thanks to the push for additional arts funding for the school, Finn coached glee club.

Finn told them about how the football team was not a bunch of asshats anymore, the Cheerios were no longer elitist and snooty, and it seemed that with the continuous victories and National championships that the new New Directions kept bringing home, the social hierarchy slowly dissolved. Popular kids were both in sports as well as glee club.

“It’s pretty cool, actually. I was just telling Rachel that if we were in high school now, she would be the popular girl. Right alongside you, Quinn.” Finn said over the din of the dishwasher. He was dressed in his grease-stained tire shop jumpsuit, polishing off the remnants of the chips in the bowl. They had just finished eating dinner in their preferred manner: standing around the breakfast island, hunched over plates and bowls, eating over the sink so there would be one less plate to wash. It was also nacho-taco night.

“If Quinn and I were the most popular girls in school, no one would have stood a chance. We’d be the best power couple McKinley would have ever seen.” Rachel said, chest puffed which made Quinn laugh. Seeing Rachel so stern and serious, all brevity was lost all because she had a bit of salsa on her chin. Quinn reached up with a paper napkin to swipe it away, shaking her head with a chuckle.

“Maybe wouldn’t have gotten pregnant at all.”

“Have you visited Mr. Schue again, by the way?” Finn asked Quinn. “Rachel hasn’t been by to see him and he asks after you guys a lot. You should visit him – lots of kids do. Ones that were in glee club and stuff, you know, people he encouraged and helped. But it would still make him feel damn good if the original members drop by.”

“What if he has forgotten who we are? Or, I guess he would never forget his favourite student,” Quinn gestured towards Rachel. “He probably forgot about me though.”

“No way! He keeps a framed picture of us during the early days right on his desk. It’s the yearbook photo of our first year of glee club.”

Quinn looked at Rachel who seemed touched. “You want to drop by tomorrow after school?”

“That would be perfect because we have glee tomorrow and you can sit-in at a glee club meeting! Even perform a few songs! It’ll be great!” Finn said in all his brimming enthusiasm.

Rachel held up a hand as if to stop him. ‘You’re going to have to go through my agent for a performance,” she teased.

They agreed to carpool with Finn mid-afternoon the next day. He would usually go to McKinley straight from the tire shop, but he called Rachel hours after lunchtime with an urgent bit of news.

“We’re swamped with work at the garage right now – I forgot Burt did a sale so I won’t be able to come with you to the school. I already called Mr. Schue and I told him I can’t help with the glee club but I mentioned that I got someone to cover for me. I didn’t tell him you two are coming though – I wanted it to be a surprise for him.”

Rachel and Quinn were both lounging in Quinn’s backyard after a light lunch that they shared. They sat, drinking pink lemonade in tall chilled glasses that dripped with condensation. They looked at each other as Rachel replied. “Oh, okay. Quinn and I will just go by ourselves.”

“You might want to leave right now or else you’ll meet the traffic of parents picking up their kids and you won’t have anywhere to park.”

She hung up and explained to Quinn the change of plans.

“Let’s go then. That way we can see Mr. Schue before last period lets out and we can avoid being trampled by teenagers.” Quinn suggested.

With Rachel in the passenger seat beside her, Quinn drove the familiar blocks and streets on her way to McKinley High. She took the same route she drove through all those years ago, every day, for four years. At the sight of the squat brown brick building of her high school, Quinn felt a weird pang of nostalgia that she never thought she would associate with the place she once loathed. Glancing towards Rachel, she saw the expression in her face shift and contort into a small grimace.

“I went back a few times while I was in college, but I haven’t been back since… Maybe around the time Mr. Schue got married?” Rachel said as Quinn parked the car on one of the visitor lots by the side of the school building. “So it’s been a couple of years since I saw him last. What about you?”

“I don’t think I went back after his wedding either. It seems kind of weird, you know, to keep visiting him. I was just so sure that he would either forget about me if I wasn’t with anyone else from glee club so I’ve never visited him when I’m alone.”

“Well, now you’re with me,” Rachel grinned. The backs of their hands brushed against each other and Quinn rushed to open the door.

They entered the same yellowed hallways, the same stale pubescent air. Quinn flinched and Rachel giggled at her expression. They ducked into the office that held the front desk, surrounded by the glass walls to keep the smell out. It was brightly lit inside the administrative offices, and behind the front desk sat an elderly bespectacled woman who looked at Quinn and Rachel above the rims of her glasses.

“Who are you here to see?” She asked with a gruff tone.

“The principal, Mr. Schuester.” Rachel said.

“Are you the parents of Steve?” The woman asked as she typed away with heavy clicking fingers against her keyboard. Quinn noticed the boy sulking on the chairs off to the side. He caught her looking so he sank deeper into his seat and attempted to hide behind his hooded sweater.

“What? No. We’re old students of his.”

“Oh, I see,” the woman looked at them again and handed out two visitor passes to both of them. She reached for the phone but Rachel held out her hand.

“If you don’t mind, we’d like to surprise him.”

“Go ahead. His office is right through there,” she said, pointing towards the closed oak door. Quinn thanked the secretary and with Rachel they crept up to the door and knocked a few times. They heard his muffled voice allowing them to come in. Rachel kicked the door down and burst in, arms held out in front of her, doing jazz hands.

“Hiya, Mr. Schue!”

He looked up from his computer. He wore glasses now, and he was greyer than Quinn last saw him. He had more wrinkles across his forehead and the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes deepened when he saw the two women who stood on the doorway of his office. “Rachel! Quinn! It’s been too long!” He rose, held out his arms and pulled them both into a hug. “I’m guessing you two are covering for Finn today?”

“You bet,” Rachel grinned.

“Great! I’m not the advisor for glee club anymore – Finn does most of the coaching, after all. I help sometimes with the dancing and the choreography. Anyway,” Mr. Schue shook his head and motioned towards the two chairs he had in front of his desk. “We have time until club starts. I want to hear what you have been up to! Especially you, Quinn. I haven’t heard from you in a while. I think I’ve seen Santana more than I’ve seen you. How was Yale? You went for the theatre program, correct?”

Quinn let Rachel guide her to sit on the olive green cushioned seats beside each other as she told Mr. Schue about the past four years in broad brush strokes, omitting the enlightenments about her sexuality and the like. “I’m back in Ohio until I can get an interview with some theatres in New Haven, possibly New York. Some of them are kind enough to do phone or video interviews so I don’t have to travel there to meet someone for twenty minutes, tops, and then end up not getting the job after all.”

When the conversation steered towards Rachel’s career, Quinn was more than happy to sit back and watch the way Rachel’s features lit up with excitement every time she had the opportunity to talk about herself, and more importantly, the work that she was doing. She really did love theatre, Broadway, and performing, beyond the pettiness of fame and fortune. Though, Quinn was sure, that the acknowledgment of her talents were sure to go to Rachel’s head.

The bell rang to signify the dismissal of classes as they heard, from the confines of the principal’s office and through the protective glass walls of the administration office, the clamouring of the students. Locker doors – or perhaps students – being slammed into their hinges, sounds of laughter and shouting, and thunderous footsteps seemed to shake the foundations of the building.

After a few minutes, the rush seemed to have calmed down. All three of them walked down the familiar hallways of the school. Some students stared at Rachel and Quinn as they walked past, the school’s principal leading them through the throng of students as he said hello to everyone he met. They passed the trophy case where, behind the glass case where the Cheerio championship trophy once sat, their first Nationals trophy now perched along a photograph of the glee club surrounding the trophy.

“Every day, I pass by that trophy and that photo, and I think about you kids paving the way for the glee club of today,” Mr. Schue said. Through the reflection of the case, Quinn locked eyes with Rachel, their lips curled into a small conspiratorial smile.

Mr. Schue ushered them into the choir room where around twenty students were gathered. Sure enough, Finn’s statement of how the hierarchies of the school seemed to have dissipated, or at the very least blurred, seemed true. Boys in their football jerseys, Cheerios in their same red, white, and black uniforms, and other students with no other visible affiliation other than their presence in the choir room sat on the maroon chairs up and down the risers. At Mr. Schue’s presence, they looked up from their phones, their books, their friends to sit at attention.

“Hi everyone. Unfortunately, Finn isn’t able to make it today – he has an emergency at work. But!” Mr. Schue beamed and flourished towards Rachel and Quinn who both stood a bit behind him. “I have two guests here. My students from before – ”

“I know them – they’re in the early glee club yearbook photos,” one student dressed in all-black clothing spoke up. “Same with Finn.”

“Why don’t you two introduce yourselves?” The principal suggested.

“Hi, I’m Rachel Berry,” Rachel immediately stepped front and centre. “I’m happy to see that there are now more than the requisite number of members here. I remember back in my day how we struggled to keep the minimum amount of people,” she glanced back at Quinn who only chuckled and nodded. “Anyways, it was in this room that I fought tooth and nail for my dreams and aspirations so I’m hoping I can offer to you whatever bit of knowledge that I can.” Rachel took a quick bow, much to Quinn’s amusement, as she gestured towards the blonde.

“Hi,” Quinn said, meeting the eyes of the students sitting in front of her. She had her fair share of talking to people her own age, and sometimes older, but rarely did she have the opportunity to talk to those younger than her. “My name is Quinn Fabray. I guess, like Rachel, I learned a lot in this room, and being in this club. It was through glee that I learned crucial things about who I am and what I want in life.” Her eyes wandered towards Rachel whose eyes never left her. “And I think that’s the most important thing at this age, when everyone is still trying to figure out themselves.”

Mr. Schuester smiled, nodding at Quinn’s words. “How about you show us what you can do? Sing us a duet!” He teased.

“We didn’t really prepare anything – ”

Rachel tugged at Quinn’s sleeve and led her to a corner of the choir room, aware of the eyes that followed them. They spoke in hushed tones, Rachel suggesting a song that Quinn was familiar with. She knew the song because they have been hanging out for a few weeks now and they, much to their surprise, shared a common taste in music. Quinn let out a sigh. She hadn’t performed with anyone, let alone with Rachel in so long that she was sure she would botch it somehow. But seeing how Rachel grinned in excitement as she discussed the music with the band that stood by, Quinn did not think it was necessary to worry.

“Ready?” Quinn asked Rachel. They stood on opposite ends of the choir room after warming up their voices. Mr. Schuester now sat on one of the chairs at the back of the risers. All eyes trained on them.

“Always,” Rachel said, and the music began.

The lyrics were not as important, was not as noteworthy as the energy exchanged between Quinn and Rachel as they sang to and with each other. For the duration of the song, Quinn never ceased to look at Rachel as she danced, twirled, and flirted with the blonde, a passion that Quinn returned in kind.

Quinn vaguely recalled that this was how it felt to sing with Rachel. For everyone’s irritation over how she liked to have the spotlight to herself, Rachel was an impeccable duet partner. She synergized, was generous with her harmonies while keeping in mind her singing partner’s range, always sure not to force any reaching.

And the way she looked at you… It was no wonder that Finn fell in love with Rachel given the amount of times they sang to each other. It was this immersive experience that isolated Rachel and whoever she was singing to – Quinn, in this case – and with only her voice, her subtle expressions, the shine in her eyes, it created a brand new world of promise.

Quinn could almost believe that Rachel was, in fact, singing _to_ her – and only her.

For the duration of the song, Quinn allowed herself to believe. But all songs must come to an end, and when it did, so too did the fairy tale.

Thunderous applause reached their ears and it snapped Quinn out of the bubble of her fantasy. She tucked a hair behind her ear, smiled at Rachel who was looking at her with wide brimming eyes.

“Wow,” Mr. Schuester said. “Remind me again why I didn’t pair you two up for duets more often? That was _amazing_!”

Quinn laughed out the excess energy that pooled inside her chest, caused by the rapid beating of her heart. “Maybe that was for the best, Mr. Schue.”

Rachel took the lead of teaching the class. Mr. Schuester excused himself to return to his principal duties, and Quinn stood off to the side by the piano to watch Rachel explain her career, how glee club helped her achieve it. Having heard it all before, Quinn took that moment to slip out of the choir room to take a breather in the middle of the empty hallway. Minutes later, a student emerged from the room and approached Quinn.

“Hi, I’m Ellie,” the girl said, introducing herself. “Are you and Rachel together?”

“I – um, nice to meet you,” Quinn’s face flushed. “And, no. We’re not – ”

“Oh,” Ellie seemed to deflate, shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to assume. It’s just… The way you two looked at each other...”

“That’s okay, I’m not offended. But why do you ask?”

“I have a crush on a girl and I’m kind of freaking out about it,” she admitted. “And she’s in glee club too and I can’t even perform a song without losing my mind because in some way or another, it will be about my feelings for her and I’m scared that if she found out, she would think of me differently.” She stared at her feet and Quinn could not help but see something of herself in this young woman, dressed in baggy jeans with one leg cuffed, a heather grey tee, and a green plaid shirt. 

“You should tell her,” Quinn suggested. “You can keep singing every song, both wanting and not wanting for her to figure out how you feel. It might as well be on your own terms. It’s better to be honest now than regret it for every single day of your life once you’re out of high school.”

Ellie slumped back against the wall of lockers, still watching Quinn. “Are you speaking from experience?”

Quinn grinned. “When I visited Mr. Schue and the glee club, I thought I was going to help out with show choir stuff, not _love_ problems. But yes, you can say that.”

“I knew it,” the student said with a relieved sigh. “That chemistry between you two – there’s just no way that’s acting, you know?”

The door creaked open and out stepped a girl in a dress peppered with pink flowers, a sash tied around her waist. She had long, wavy hair draped over her shoulders. “Hi,” she offered a small smile to Quinn before she turned to Ellie. From the change in the girl’s demeanour, it was clear to Quinn that this was the girl Ellie was referring to. “Miss Berry wants us to break off into pairs and perform a duet. I was hoping you’d be my partner?”

“Y-yeah, sure, Aster! I’d love to!” Ellie said, glancing at this girl and back at Quinn. Together, all three of them returned to the choir room, the students in their pairs while Rachel looked through the sheet music up on the shelves that surrounded the whiteboard.

“Are you having fun?” Quinn asked.

“I never thought I’d be teaching glee club even though it’s only for one day,” she giggled. “It’s fun! I get to pick the theme and not have it be weird like how Mr. Schue gets, sometimes.”

“Glad you’re enjoying yourself,” Quinn squeezed Rachel’s shoulders. “I’m going to walk around. I’ll meet you when you’re done.”

Rachel nodded and reached out for Quinn’s hand to squeeze it. “Going for a walk through memory lane?”

“Something like that,” Quinn chuckled. She made her way out of the choir room, chancing to look back towards Ellie, a serious expression now on her face as she spoke to the girl who watched her with a small smile. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad for her then, Quinn thought in relief.

She wandered the familiar hallways of McKinley High School. The blue slushy stains remained on the floor in some corners of hallways, some locker doors dented from back when football jocks would slam losers against them. She found her old locker – one of them, anyway – and passed by the old classrooms. Here was the room where the Celibacy Club met. Here was the bathroom where she slapped Rachel only to be told that she was the prettiest girl Rachel had ever met.

She eventually found herself walking through the backstage of the auditorium and towards the stage where the polished piano sat, gleaming underneath the pin lights.

Sitting on the piano bench, Quinn stared at the ivory keys. There was something about being in McKinley again that reminded her of her feelings from the past. It made her feel young again, nursing a crush that she refused to face. That crush that she now believed to border on love terrified her, and the recollection of those memories, those feelings that rose to the surface of her consciousness, grew ever palpable.

She was seventeen again, and maybe she would be more reckless this time.

The advice that she gave to the young woman could also be one that she should follow, though a part of her hesitated at the precipice. Always, that terrified girl who refused to take risks, knowing full well that total happiness lay beyond the boundary, there for her to know if only she could summon the will to leap.

Footsteps echoed stage right and Quinn looked up to see Rachel come into view like a sunrise, like a vision. She took slow, careful steps until she stood by the piano. “How did you know I’d be here? How’s glee club?” Quinn asked.

“I have a Quinn-radar. I figured you’d be here or in a bathroom,” Rachel grinned and sat on the piano bench beside Quinn. “And the glee club is amazing though we had to cut the time short. A girl confessed that she has feelings for her duet partner and everyone was celebrating. I thought it was better to let them bask in their newfound reciprocated feelings for one another so I let them all go early.”

“Oh? I’m glad it worked out for those two.”

“Yeah! It was really sweet. By the way,” Rachel leaned heavily against Quinn’s arm, her chin resting on top of her shoulders. “Why do you think it was for the best that we didn’t sing duets with each other in high school?”

“You do know I’m in love with you, right? We sang a grand total of one duet with each other – two if you count today, and already it was enough. Add more to that and who knows what it would do to me?”

Rachel stiffened and she sat up, back erect. Still, Quinn focused on the ivory keys, the scene before her – looked everywhere but at Rachel though she could feel her eyes and how she stared at her. Felt the ripple of her sight raise the hairs on the back of her neck. Quinn kept her features stoic.

“Say that again? Please?” asked a bewildered Rachel.

Quinn chuckled, willed herself to look at Rachel and keep the mood light, not wanting the somber mood that underlay a lot of confessions of love. “I’m in love with you and it’s completely fine that you don’t feel the same way. Okay, maybe to say ‘completely’ is a stretch, but I’ve gotten used to it. I don’t have much by way of expectations, so don’t feel bad about not returning my feelings.”

She replaced the lid over the piano’s keys and focused her attention on Rachel now. Still with the stunned expression of a deer met by headlights. “You’re married to Finn and there’s nothing I can do about that – believe me, I tried,” Quinn teased, and it was with relief that a smile peeked out of Rachel’s lips. “Don’t let the way I feel change anything, okay?”

“I – I don’t know what to say. And I know what you’re going to say. That it’s a first –” Rachel scowled at Quinn who laughed, grinning bright. “It’s not every day that your best friend throws a curveball like that at you.”

At this, Quinn shrugged. It was a mixed bag – to be called Rachel’s best friend. It meant something to her to have their closeness be acknowledged, but in a vein that was different from how she perceived Rachel. “You don’t have to say anything, really.”

“I’m glad you told me, Quinn. I really am. But may I ask what brought this on?”

“You mean besides returning to McKinley and remembering everything I went through with you? From hating you, to tolerating you, to not knowing that the way I feel for you is love?” Quinn chuckled and shook her head. Now that the initial expulsion of nervous energy was over and done with, it became easier to talk about the cards she kept so close to her heart for the past years. “The girl who confessed during glee club – Ellie. She told me I looked in love with you so she asked me what she should do about her crush. I told her to be honest and share her feelings or else she might regret it – or at the very least, find it difficult to recover. Lack of closure and all of that.” Quinn sighed and leaned her elbow against the piano lid, angled her body to face Rachel more fully. “That’s also another reason why it was for the best that we didn’t perform together more, by the way. If a student who knew absolutely nothing about us could read me like that, who knows about our friends?”

“I see your point,” Rachel laughed. “But is that really so bad?”

“Maybe not, but I wasn’t ready. Everyone knew me as the girl who got pregnant in sophomore year. To suddenly become the lesbian in love with Rachel Berry seems too intense of a one-eighty. And you were so in love with Finn that you were going to marry him, so what was the point?”

“But you’re telling me now and I’m married to him,” Rachel pointed out. “What changed?”

“I figured we could be adults about it. I tell you, you take it in stride. Then I try to get over it.”

Rachel looked at Quinn to the point where the blonde’s skin flushed and she had to look away from those bright brown eyes that made her stomach lurch every time their eyes met for far too long. “You were in New Haven for four years. We barely saw each other for those four years and _still_ you weren’t over me.”

“Does that make you feel like gloating?”

Rachel burst into giggles and she nudged Quinn with her shoulder. “Maybe a little.”

“I thought I was – over you, I mean. I think this time around, it’s more of a second wave.”

“So what you’re saying is… as long as I’m around you…”

“I will always be at risk of falling in love. _Look_ ,” Quinn said, exasperated now. She did not expect her confession to turn out into a drawn-out discussion that she almost regretted mentioning anything about it. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Quinn! Of _course_ it does! Your feelings – ”

“I’ll get over it,” she said, off-hand, breezy. “Just promise me that nothing will change between us.”

For a moment, Rachel only stared at Quinn, eyes fierce and ablaze with intent. “Of course, Quinn.”


	5. Chapter 5

For all of Quinn’s talk about keeping things the same, as they were, in total equilibrium, it was only lip service. All of it. But Rachel could not really fault her for it. Surely, it was difficult to face the one whom you confessed your love to in the same degree as before. There was no way that Quinn could simply forget that she told Rachel that she was _in love with her_ , face her with the same lightness, as if everything was the way it was when it absolutely was not.

Rachel missed Quinn. She missed brewing coffee for two – despite Finn’s early mornings, he still did not drink coffee. Instead, he drank tea blends that tasted like s’mores, or gingerbread cookies, or strawberry cheesecake. She missed having breakfast with Quinn under the shade of the trees while the crisp autumn air rustled the boughs of trees as they admire the rise of the new day. It had only been a week but it felt long – _too long_ – to be without the one good thing in the entire state of Ohio.

Sometimes Rachel would glimpse Quinn coming home from a shift of singing at Isle L or through the gap in the curtains that allowed her to peek inside the Fabray house. Quinn on the phone. Quinn drinking water by the sink. Quinn in front of her laptop, glasses on her nose, locks of blonde hair that framed her beautiful face. Rachel sighed. Longed to knock on her door for a taste of Quinn’s company.

But she knew that Quinn needed space.

Without Quinn, the buffer for the climbing tension between her and Finn was gone. They no longer ate standing up, no longer ate over the sink. They sat on opposite ends of the dining table, asking to pass the salt in low, gruff voices. After weeks of Quinn’s illuminating and wonderful presence, to be stuck in the silence of not having anything in common with her husband was brutal.

“Why does Quinn not come over anymore?” Finn asked one night while he washed the dishes and Rachel scrubbed the surface of the stove. “Did you two get into a fight?”

“No! Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know. I thought you two were getting along so well,” Finn shrugged while he towel-dried his hands, eyeing Rachel with a curious glance.

“I think she’s busy – I really don’t know. She usually comes over without having to be invited, so – ”

“Did something happen between you two?” Finn asked carefully, cautiously.

Rachel bit her lip. She could not very well say – _Quinn confessed that she was in love with me, and I’m starting to think that I am too_ – to her _husband_. She clenched her fist. The sparkle of the gold band of her wedding ring no longer brought her comfort unlike the early days of their marriage. She wanted to wrench the ring free, throw it in a fathomless direction.

Instead, she wrestled the ring from her finger and slipped it inside her pocket.

“We still need to talk, by the way,” Rachel murmured.

“About the – yeah, I know,” Finn said, defeated. “I’m meeting Burt’s lawyer tomorrow. Did you talk to your dads’ lawyer?”

Rachel nodded. With that, Finn sighed. He filled his water bottle and retreated into the basement of their house to play hours upon hours of video games.

Meanwhile, Rachel pulled a sweater over her head so she could sit outside, in the midst of the frigid autumn night. She sat on the porch swing, watched the neighbours who were going for a night run and waved at the dogs who peed on her lawn. There was a tranquility that was unique in this Lima suburb – one she could never find in such a busy bustling city like New York. Or at the very least, it would have been a different sort of tranquility.

Quinn’s car was not parked on the driveway which meant she worked at Isle L for the night. Rachel could, with ease, close her eyes and she would hear the soft trills of the band, Quinn’s smoky voice as it permeated the haze of the atmosphere. She shivered in longing and it reached her to the depths. Rachel hugged her legs to her chest, resigned to a night of pining.

She needed to talk to Quinn. She needed to let her know that her feelings were reciprocated to some degree, unsure as she was. All she knew that this week spent without Quinn when she was _right there_ , a hand’s breadth out of reach, was enough to wreak a gulf of loneliness inside her. It was unbearable – knowing that Quinn loves her, but here they were, existing in two different houses, two different states of being.

With shaky legs, Rachel crossed the lawn over to the Fabray side. She perched herself on the steps of the porch, leaned her head against the flaking white paint of the wooden post that started the railing that wrapped around the house, and waited.

+

Quinn pulled into the smooth tar of her mother’s driveway with an exhausted sigh. It had been a long night – her last and final show at Isle L. The hour was late, nearing three in the morning. She felt the need to drink coffee to ensure that she would not fall asleep at the wheel on her way back home. And it was terrible coffee too. The powdered instant kind that Vick found behind the bar, stirred in with tepid water and had a burnt plastic aftertaste.

At the very least, Quinn had a fun night. Vick and Ella wished her luck for her future and reminded her that she was welcome back anytime. Lucille returned to Isle L and Quinn danced with her all night long after her performance. They kissed a few times. She even invited Quinn back to her place but Quinn could not find it in herself to accept so they kissed and parted ways. Not telling the beautiful woman that it was likely that they would never see each other again.

She stepped out of her car and took the few steps toward her front door, only to pause. She blinked, unsure if she was imagining things. “Rachel?”

The woman in question stirred from her position on the steps of Quinn’s porch. With bleary eyes and a stifled yawn, Rachel smiled. “Hi. Welcome home.”

“What are you doing here?” Having just stirred from a light sleep, Rachel began to shiver. “How long have you been waiting on my porch?”

“What time is it?”

“Two – almost three in the morning.”

“Just a couple of hours then,” Rachel rubbed her arms and squinted up at Quinn. “You’ve never been out that late before.”

“Yes, well,” Quinn cleared her throat, hands shoved into the deep pockets of her coat. Inside it, she shook her keys to create an iota of sound in the silent streets. “It was my last performance at Isle L.”

At this, Rachel’s eyes widened, then narrowed into a somber expression. “Why? Are you leaving Ohio?” A shiver ripped through her body again and Quinn sighed. Offered her hand to Rachel who took it with absolutely no hesitation. She pulled her to her feet and Rachel heaved herself up so that her body and Quinn’s body held no space between them.

“You smell different,” Rachel said. “Like…”

“Smoke and beer from the bar?”

“No, like – ” Rachel inhaled. “Cinnamon. And you have a mark on your neck.”

Quinn cleared her throat and tugged at the collar of her shirt. The memory of Lucille’s lips against her pulse sent it fluttering again, like the rapid beat that wings needed to fly. “You should go to your house – to your bed, where it’s warm.”

“But I need to talk to you. Can we talk? Please?”

Quinn clenched her jaw and averted her eyes, looked anywhere but at Rachel. “Not tonight – it’s late and I’m tired. You should go to bed,” she repeated, but Rachel, neck bowed, shook her head. “Alright, _fine_. But come inside at least or you’re going to freeze.”

She unlocked the front door and ushered Rachel inside the darkness of her house. She hung her coat, led Rachel into the living room so she could sit and shake the chill from her bones. Quinn disappeared into the kitchen to heat water and make two cups of warm, fragrant tea that she carried in two green porcelain mugs. She sat across from Rachel, on an armchair. Crossed her legs and waited.

Finally, Rachel spoke after sipping and blowing on her mug for a handful of minutes. “Are you leaving?”

The blonde fingered the knot between her eyes where a headache began to form. “Yes. A theatre in New York hired me to be an assistant to the director.”

“Quinn, that’s great news! B-but do you have anywhere to stay? An apartment? You can stay with me in mine, if you want – ”

“I’m staying with Brittany and Santana until I find my own place. This can’t be the reason why you were sitting on my porch, waiting for me to come home. You didn’t even know I was leaving until I told you just now. Why were you really sitting out there?”

Something about the silence that enveloped them felt palpable and drastic. The only light stemmed from the kitchen and it cloaked Rachel in shadow, but it was enough. She could see Rachel, deep in her thoughts, mulling over the next words she intended to say.

“When you told me you were in love with me, you _promised_ nothing would change between us,” Rachel started, her voice as clear as a summer day and twice as heated. “And at first I thought, _okay_ , I’m going to not hold on to Quinn as much anymore because I don’t know how it affects you, if it hurts you or not, but you stopped coming over a-and I thought, _did I push you away?_ But I don’t remember doing anything different, so tell me, Quinn,” she looked at the blonde now, with the corners of her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Did I do something wrong?”

With every word that passed from Rachel’s lips, her body seemed to close up. Her knees drawn to her chest. Her back curved, hunched over herself, as if protecting the tender part of her centre from anything Quinn would say. Quinn found herself softening while she cursed herself for being drawn in by the very image of Rachel. Her heart wrenched, the gasp of pain left her in a sigh. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then how come – ”

“I wasn’t sure if you meant it. That you meant that we can keep being friends the way we have been. It felt – like I was violating your trust as your friend when everything between us – how you rest your head on my shoulder, or the way you look at me whenever you laugh – it feels like I’m taking something that doesn’t belong to me. And then, as always, I fall in love with you a little bit more.” Quinn stared at Rachel sitting only a few feet away yet she felt so far away in an orbit Quinn could almost reach.

“Can I stay with you tonight?” Rachel asked softly. Her hair glowed silver in the moonlight that pooled through the gap in the french windows.

Quinn, unable to stammer out a reason against Rachel’s request, resigned herself. “Are you sure? Won’t Finn be looking for you?”

“It’ll be fine – he won’t mind.”

“I’m not sure if that’s true…” Quinn muttered. They both drained the rest of the tea in their cups. They carried it to the sink and with slow, soft steps made their way upstairs to Quinn’s bedroom. “You have to promise – no funny business, okay? Just… Just _sleep_.”

“I promise.”

Quinn offered Rachel a set of clothes to change into – dark grey sweats and a shirt – before she disappeared into the bathroom to give Rachel privacy to change as well as to change into her own set of comfortable clothing and to wash her face, brush her teeth. Upon her return, she found Rachel already nestled in her bed, the covers over her legs, her long dark hair in a loose ponytail draped over her right shoulder. It wrenched Quinn’s heart so to see her in her bed, perhaps for the first and final time.

With a breath to steel herself, she tossed her used attire into her clothes hamper. She slipped in under the blanket with Rachel. The hush of four in the morning was distinct in its stillness, and it was even colder now, too, and she noticed Rachel shiver.

“Do you want me to close the window?” Quinn asked.

“You leave it open?”

“It gets warm in my room at night.”

“You can leave it open.”

They lay side by side, not talking, though Quinn’s body seemed to thrum with – not discomfort, but something that walked its knife edge. Her body seemed awake, alive, keen around Rachel though her eyes threatened to close, heavy with the weight of exhaustion.

“It might seem to be unbelievable, and I don’t blame you for not trusting me when I say this,” came Rachel’s voice through the fog of sleep. “But I think I’ve always loved you. I’ve never thought about it before until you brought in the possibility of that kind of love. I used to think I wanted to _be_ you and that was it, but now…”

Quinn threw her arm over her eyes. “Say I believe you,” and she wanted to. Dear _god_ , she wanted to. “It wouldn’t matter anyway. You’re married.” It was the refrain she kept repeating, the only thing that kept her from viewing anything that transpired between her and Rachel as anything feasible.

From her side of the bed, Rachel propped herself up on her elbow to face Quinn, and the blonde turned to meet her gaze. Her warm hand rested on top of Quinn’s chest, right against the jut of her collarbones.

And then Rachel kissed Quinn.

Out of habit, out of her own longing – as if directed by the current of her love for Rachel, Quinn kissed her back.

“I thought you promised no funny business?” Quinn murmured, lips still flush against Rachel’s mouth.

“It’s not. This is serious business.”

A beat, and one of them snorted. They burst into laughter. Rachel buried her neck against Quinn’s shoulder, body wracked with giggles. Quinn threw an arm over Rachel’s hip, laughing as quietly as she could, though there was no reason to stifle the sound of absurd joy that welled inside her.

Their laughter descended into giggles and occasional snickers. Quinn’s body thrummed with wakefulness. It was difficult, near impossible to be anything but awake when Rachel was on top of her.

“Can I kiss you again?” Rachel murmured. The tips of her fingers grazed the line of Quinn’s jaw. Her half-lidded eyes bright with moonlight and full of intent. Quinn worried her bottom lip, unsure if she only saw what she wanted to see.

“You can,” Quinn whispered, her hand curling around Rachel’s wrist. “But I just want to say – you really need to start respecting people’s boundaries. You promised nothing untoward would happen, yet here you are.”

“Did you… do you _not_ want me to kiss you?” Rachel asked with a furrowed brow.

“I – I did. I do. But that’s not the point. I’m saying that you show very little respect for _my_ feelings, and even Finn’s feelings by just going ahead and doing whatever you feel like doing,” Quinn sat up on the bed, her back against the headboard, shaking her head in disbelief. “I knew you were all kinds of selfish but this is truly something else, Rachel.”

The dark-haired woman sat cross-legged in front of Quinn, a frown forming on her features. “There is _nothing_ wrong with going after what I want.”

“I know, and I love that about you – I really do.”

“Then – ”

“But I’m talking about you chasing after your _dreams_ – not roping me into your extramarital affairs.”

Rachel sighed, her shoulders lost tension as she wrapped her arms around her middle. “You think no one gets hurt when I audition and get accepted for the role? For every step I take towards my goals, someone’s aspirations shatter along with it. And even as I keep on going towards my dreams, it is inevitable that my marriage disintegrates into something alien, something so void of passion that I don’t recognize it anymore. Don’t you see, Quinn? Finn’s dreams and my dreams are so drastically different. Incompatible with each other’s.”

“Maybe you can still convince him to move to New York with you. Maybe you can still work it out – ”

“I don’t understand,” Rachel said with a soft, uneasy chuckle. “Do you want to be with me or not?”

Quinn dug the heel of her palms against her eyelids. “I do. I _do_ , so fucking badly, you have no idea.”

Rachel shifted closer to Quinn. Her face, illuminated by moonlight, the chill of the autumn breeze giving rise to goosebumps along her arms. Rachel, with her beautiful, earnest face, cupped Quinn’s jaw in her palm. The tips of her fingers brushed against her pulse at the back of her ear.

“Then why are you pushing me away?”

“I’m scared,” Quinn said, her voice hitching in her throat. “That this won’t work out. That you’ll leave me, or I’ll leave you. Or that all my wanting all these years means absolutely nothing to you. I don’t want to hurt Finn or your marriage. I don’t want to be the other woman. This isn’t just a fling to me. Every touch, every kiss… It’ll stay with me for who knows how long. So if you’re just doing this because you’re lonely, or as something to fill your time, then,” she released a shaky breath. “Stop now while you’re ahead. For my sake.”

It was the kiss to her forehead that squeezed Quinn’s heart into a painful, tender grasp. Rachel cradled her head, kissed her brow, her cheeks. Pressed their foreheads together. “I know it’s complicated right now and I feel like my life is spinning beyond my control sometimes… But when I’m with you, with nothing between us, I feel like myself again.”

The distant sadness in Rachel’s demeanour. Quinn gave into its ache and sting as she traced her thumb against the ridges of her knuckles. She paused. The gold band around Rachel’s ring finger was missing save for a dent and paler skin that marked the ring’s absence. Quinn started in shock. Instead of asking about it, she curled her hand around the back of Rachel’s neck and kissed her once more.

Quinn succumbed into the whirling tide of love she cannot seem to escape. Against her, Rachel writhed, mouth locked on to her mouth. Small whimpers, kittenish gasps, Rachel’s fists curled against the fabric of Quinn’s shirt. They clung to one another as if dangling off a sheer rockface and the only one that could save them was each other. The pit of her stomach lurched with painful desire. The more Rachel cried out Quinn’s name, with every undulation of their cresting bodies to pleasure’s peak, the more Quinn could not seem to close her eyes. She refused to lose the vision of Rachel, eyes wide open in violent yearning.

Sweat dampened their foreheads and they both panted. Bodies trembling with the aftershocks of the quake they brought upon each other. They kissed, again and again. Quinn’s lips clung to Rachel’s. She quivered into the slick heat of arousal that threatened to consume her.

“God,” Quinn said, panting. “It really _is_ different with the one you love.”

Rachel licked her parched lips, giggling. Looked at Quinn with what could only be described as, without a doubt, eyes full of love. “It really is.”

+

With the sun came clarity – _usually_.

But nothing in Quinn’s heart had changed. The view she took in upon stirring, upon waking up, was a mass of dark brown hair nestled against her naked chest. The steady sigh of a still-asleep Rachel. Quinn blinked through the haze and memories flooded into her mind, accompanied by the dull ache that permeated her body. She stroked the flat planes of Rachel’s back, the smooth skin, the dip of her spine.

She did not feel guilty. She _wanted_ to feel guilty. She knew that what they did, what they were doing, was the farthest thing from being right, but here, with Rachel in her arms and the sun warming the sheets, on the length of Rachel’s bare calves, the clothes they shed from the night pooled in bunches on the carpeted floor, she had never felt so sincere, so elated, than how she was now.

Rachel stirred and she squirmed in Quinn’s embrace to face the wide-awake blonde. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi. Did you sleep well?”

Rachel flattened her palms, one on top of the other, on top of Quinn’s chest, and her chin rested against the back of her hands. “Best sleep I’ve had in a long while.”

Equal parts smug and amused, Quinn chuckled. “Would you like some breakfast? I can make us something.”

“I would love breakfast but I also would like to shower. Last night was… intense. My body feels so sticky from all the sweating we did.”

Quinn, unsure whether Rachel was being purposefully seductive or just being forthright, nodded. “Sure, you can shower. I’ll go after you.”

Rachel sat up and stretched her arms over her head, exposing her naked body. She eased off the bed to stretch. She arched her back, rolled her neck. Her hair fell in thick brown waves over her bare shoulder as she looked over her shoulder to smile at Quinn. “How about we shower together and save some water?”

“That’s the oldest excuse in the book and it never does save any water,” Quinn muttered.

But she followed Rachel into the bathroom anyway.

They stood under the water’s warm spray, Rachel’s slick back against Quinn’s front while she read the labels of the bottles by the showerhead. Rachel grabbed the bottle labelled as body wash and took a sniff, all while Quinn had her arms wrapped around her waist. She licked the water that pooled on the curve of Rachel’s neck. Water had never tasted so sweet.

Rachel spun to face Quinn, palm full of the liquid soap. “So this is why you smell so good.”

She allowed the translucent green liquid drip from the tips of her fingers to Quinn’s skin. Rachel lathered the soap all over Quinn’s body and the blonde felt herself thrum with vibrant energy. Paired with the hungry way Rachel looked at her, she was hopeless under her touch. She grasped Rachel closer to her body, slick with water and the soap’s lather. They kissed under the steady stream of the water.

+

“See, I told you there was no way in hell showering together would save water,” Quinn said. They were back in her bedroom now, changing into clothes while Rachel changed into the attire she wore last night before they slept.

“I know, but it got you into the shower with me, didn’t it?”

Quinn grinned and reached for Rachel’s hand to kiss her knuckles. “You only have to ask.”

Downstairs, Quinn made the pancakes while Rachel made coffee. This semblance of domestic bliss brought happiness beyond Quinn’s wildest imaginings. The clock on the stove neared ten o’clock but still they ate their breakfast while they talked.

“What are you doing tonight? Do you want to come over for dinner? Or I can come here again, actually.”

“What about Finn?”

“Finn won’t be around – he’s meeting someone for dinner.”

“I’ll have to see – I have to start packing for my move.”

“Oh, right,” Rachel murmured. “When do you leave?”

“In a couple of days. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Quinn agreed to show up at Rachel’s for dinner, no matter how quick. They finished eating breakfast and Quinn walked her to the door. Before Rachel opened the front door, Quinn reached for her. Pulled her in for another kiss. Rachel softened in embrace, her forearms curled around Quinn’s neck. She released a dreamy sigh.

“I’ll see you later, okay?” Quinn murmured. She inhaled the scent of Rachel’s hair, smelled the familiar aroma of her shampoo, but on Rachel’s skin, it smelled different. Smelled sweeter, somehow.

“You will. I’ll miss you.”

Rachel left her house and Quinn leaned heavily against the door. Her body felt both light (from the awareness of her love returned, from the memory of Rachel’s fingers traversing her body) and encumbered (by the ever present guilt), all at once.

+

Rachel allowed the front door click shut behind her. It was almost noon. Finn’s truck was still parked in the driveway. Inside the house, Rachel passed by the basement door and heard the sounds of gunfire, voice lines, and Finn yelling.

She took the steps furtively down into the basement. She was rarely in here – their laundry room was at the main floor bathroom and they both agreed that it would be Finn’s personal space of sorts. It was surprisingly clean. The dark carpet, the bright walls, and the wide flat screen of the television dominated the room. Finn lowered his headset when he saw Rachel just as the screen announced his team’s victory.

“Hey,” he smiled, pausing to leave the game so he could spin in his white gaming chair to face Rachel. “Where have you been? Did you go somewhere last night?”

“I slept over at Quinn’s. I wanted to know why she wasn’t coming around anymore.” She perched herself on his lap, arm loose around his neck.

“And? What did she say?”

“She was busy. It turns out she’s leaving for New York in a couple of days since she got hired for a job. Last night was her last performance at the bar.”

“Oh, cool. I didn’t know that.” After a beat, Finn sniffed the air around Rachel, her shoulder. “You smell... different.”

Rachel winced. She forgot – having been immersed in Quinn’s presence, her scent, she did not realize that it was different and strange for Finn. She rose off his lap and looked through the L-shaped desk where Finn had his gaming computer, stacks of car magazines, and loose scraps of paper with esoteric numbers and words written all over them.

With a deep breath, Rachel faced her husband. “I’m in love with Quinn.”

To his credit, Finn appeared unfazed. He shut off his PlayStation, set his controller on the charging dock. He breathed evenly through his nose all while staring at Rachel. The only thing that gave away the shift in his mood was his clenched fists pale against his knees, his tense jaw.

“Is that why you smell different? Like her?” The grin shaky on his lips.

“You could say that,” Rachel said weakly.

She wrapped her arms around herself, ducking to avoid Finn’s, confused but focused stare. She brimmed with explanation but she knew better than to overload Finn while he processed. Instead, she watched the crease in his brow deepen. A frown formed on his features.

“So – are you saying – is she – ” Finn sighed. He got up and turned towards a shelf where he kept the cases for his video games in their alphabetical order before he faced Rachel once again. “Does she know?”

“She does. She feels the same way.”

“Oh,” Finn swallowed hard. “What – how did that happen?”

“Well, I kissed her, then I fell in love. Or maybe I’ve always been in love with Quinn – I’m not sure – but what I do know is that being around her makes me happy and light, and – ”

With every point, it was like an arrow through Finn. He winced but remained quiet.

It was difficult to fathom Finn’s silences. When they were in high school, his explosive temper was easier to understand. He would kick down a chair and storm off – and that was usually it. With time, he cooled down and he would always sulk his way back to her. But, as Rachel watched him stew in silence, it dawned on her how much he had matured without her knowing.

“Rachel? Can you leave? I need to think about stuff,” Finn said with a tight smile.

“Are you mad at me?”

Finn hesitated before he answered. “I don’t know.”

Rachel’s tense shoulders sagged and she sighed. She kissed his temple and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

He patted her back. “Yeah.”

Rachel climbed up the stairs and went to drink a glass of water, gulping it until her throat ached from the strain. She leaned with her hip against the edge of the counter, staring at the scene of their empty house. She never felt at home here. She lived in New York – that was where her heart resided. For a brief moment, in the dark, Rachel mourned what she and Finn could have had, in this house with its white picket fence, its perfectly-manicured lawn, the green hedges trimmed straight. In another world, in another universe, she might have been content here.

But in _this_ world, in _this_ universe, it was not to be.


	6. Chapter 6

Rachel dropped by Quinn’s house a few hours after Finn left to hang out with his coworkers, mostly to give Quinn some space, which Quinn was grateful for because it allowed her to calm down. She felt so young again, her heart a rampaging thing, excitable and nervous over seeing Rachel. When she opened the front door, in walked Rachel carrying a bottle of wine.

They talked all night, kissed with wine-stained lips, and at the stroke of midnight, Rachel left like the fairy tale of Quinn’s dreams.

As badly as they wanted to wake up again together the next morning, they knew that it was for the best – Finn may seem unfazed over the whole thing, but neither Rachel nor Quinn wanted to push their luck with him. Try as they might to hide, love had its way of showing up on the surface, after all.

Quinn made headway with packing her things in boxes in preparation for her move to New York. She already contacted Santana about the approximate time her plane would land in the airport. For the most part, Quinn packed her auxiliary belongings. She also browsed online apartment listings, wanting to not be a burden on her friends as much as possible. It was exciting and she began to truly feel like her life was starting to shape up into something that was once just a fantasy.

She spent the rest of the day indoors, reading. She had no plans to be with Rachel that night since she mentioned that she was going to have dinner with her dads. At dusk, after she ate a small dinner, she thought about sitting out at her porch to enjoy the cool night air. The smell of fallen leaves, of freshly-mown grass, of the impending rain, permeated the air. One look towards the direction of the Berry-Hudson house showed Finn sitting on the porch swing, two bowls perched on his lap. He rocked back and forth, chewing.

“Hey, Quinn!” He greeted. “Want some pistachios?”

Quinn laughed at the absurd question. “Sure?” She crossed the driveway, sidestepped the hedge that separated their property lines to step up to the porch. She sat beside him and unshelled a pistachio.

“Haven’t had you over in a while. Rachel mentioned that you’re about to leave for New York,” he popped a green nugget into his mouth. “That’s cool. Everyone seems to be making their way to that city, huh?” Bitterness laced in his tone and Quinn gave his arm a squeeze. “You have a place to stay?”

“I’m staying with Santana until I could find my own place.”

“Why don’t you stay with Rachel? She lives alone and I’m sure she’d love your company.”

Quinn stared at his side profile. He definitely looked older now. Gone was his baby face. His scruff-lined jaw, the beginnings of the crow’s feet by the corners of his eyes, the sharpness of his cheekbones depicted how much time had gone by. “I don’t want to impose on her.” She said. “Why don’t you want to move to New York with her, Finn?”

“It’s not my thing, you know? Big cities and stuff. Besides, I don’t know how I’d earn money there.”

“People own cars wherever you go and they would need mechanics, right?”

“I guess,” Finn smiled. “But I don’t want to leave my mom even if she has Burt. I’m not very good with adjusting to new places. Takes me forever.”

For a minute, silence. Finn rolled a nugget of pistachio in his cupped palm as if it was a dice he was about to throw. “We’re getting a divorce,” he blurted.

All Quinn could do was stare at him.

“Yeah,” he remarked with a sheepish grin. “Remember back when Rachel wasn’t around yet and I keep inviting you over when she comes? The main reason she was here was to finalize stuff, meet with lawyers and all of that. And I wanted you around so we wouldn’t have to start talking about that stuff because,” Finn’s voice caught and he coughed. “I don’t want to admit that we fucked it up, I guess?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” he rested his elbows on his thighs and buried his face in his hands. “That’s kind of why it would be cool if you stayed with Rachel in New York. That way, someone can take care of her, keep her company.”

“I can look out for her, don’t worry.” Quinn said. She rubbed his back and felt a sick wave of relief, of trepidation blossom in her chest. “Is that the only reason why you two are going to divorce? That you two grew apart?”

Finn hesitated and glanced at Quinn. “I… met someone online. While playing video games.” He straightened up, squared shoulders, ready to defend himself, but Quinn held out her hands in a placating manner that Finn immediately slackened.

“I’m not questioning your decisions. It’s your relationship. I was just curious.”

“The biggest thing was that we grew apart. I’ve always hate to think that Rachel was limiting herself from enjoying being in a big city like New York because she has a husband in Ohio,” he sneered at himself. “And I don’t want us to end up hating each other.”

“That’s very mature of you,” Quinn said.

He smiled his boyish smile and Quinn’s heart lurched for him. “Yeah.”

“Was it your idea? Or Rachel’s?”

“Both, I think. It was already in my mind, but she beat me to the punch. She brought it up first, way back. We just didn’t have the time to actually do the paperwork.”

They hung out, just eating pistachios and talking. Quinn hesitated about asking about the person Finn met online and instead focused on the fact that his marriage to Rachel had, in many ways, ended before they started this – she hesitated to call it an affair due to the term’s connotations, but she figured she might as well call a duck a duck. It _was_ an affair because it was a secret. Because the thought of bringing it up, mentioning it to Finn, filled Quinn with pure dread.

“She told me, you know,” Finn said. He stared ahead even as Quinn looked at him with a look of confusion. “That you two are in love.”

Quinn felt a pressure seize in her chest. It was the dread she had been afraid of, and here it was now, grasping her heart in its vice. She said nothing as Finn sighed and offered her his trademark half-grin. “At first I was angry – that I couldn’t be the one to make Rachel happy. I used to believe that we’re endgame. It was the one thing I had going for me – I was Rachel’s _husband_.”

“That’s not true,” Quinn whispered. “That’s not true, Finn, and you know it.”

Finn nodded. “I knew it in the back of my head that it’s not true – it’s why I wanted this divorce, right? Everyone says ‘marriage takes work!’ or ‘it’s not always fun and games and romance and excitement!’ but our marriage is, honestly, a whole lot of _nothing_. And I’ve accepted it. Sort of. Maybe a little bit.”

“It takes a lot of guts to admit something like that.”

“And I’m nothing if not gutsy,” Finn said, patting his stomach with a grin.

With her heart pounding in her chest, Quinn asked, “are you mad? At me?”

Finn chuckled. “You know, Rachel asked me the same thing. At the time, I didn’t know. But now I think I’m just tired.”

“I never want to hurt you, Finn,” Quinn murmured as tears rose to her eyes. He glanced at her over his shoulder and reached over to pull her close to his side. Quinn sniffled and rested her head against Finn’s.

“I know. But Rachel and I – we were over before you came along.” Finn squeezed Quinn’s shoulder in a reassuring gesture. “How long have you loved her?”

“Since forever,” Quinn mumbled, her voice a warbled, wet mess. At this, Finn laughed.

“Yeah, I can imagine. She has her weird way of worming into your heart and then suddenly you can’t live without her,” Finn said. “But hey! You know what this means, right? All three of us finally dated each other. The perfect love triangle, complete!”

Quinn sat up and shook her head in disbelief. “I never thought you’d react like this.”

Finn smiled. “Don’t get me wrong – it depresses the crap out of me that I couldn’t give Rachel the forever we both imagined we would have with each other. Some nights, it makes me want to just yell at the sky and kick every damn chair I see within a mile, but it won’t really change a thing and it definitely won’t make me feel better. So I just… Try to laugh about it, I guess.”

“When did you get so wise?” Quinn teased.

Finn chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. “Getting divorced in your mid-twenties will do that to you.” He turned to face Quinn and offered his half-smile that made him look boyish and young again. “Hey, Quinn?”

The blonde glanced at him, her arms resting against his back. “Yeah?”

“You probably don’t need me to tell you this… But promise me you’ll take care of her. Better than I ever did.”

Quinn opened her mouth to speak, but she did not really know what to say to that. She gave his shoulders a tight squeeze instead. “I promise.”

Eventually, Rachel arrived home from her dads. They dropped her off, waving at Finn and Quinn while Rachel climbed up to the porch, carrying containers of leftover food. “Hi, you two.” She nestled in between Finn and Quinn, replacing the bowl of pistachio shells on her lap. “How long have you two been out here?”

“Couple of hours. How was dinner with your dads?” Finn asked.

As Rachel talked about her parents and what they had been up to with her, Quinn felt a mishmash of emotions that she found difficult to contain. She was, on one side, relieved to face the possibility that she and Rachel could embark into a romantic relationship, just like she had always imagined. But on the other, guilt welled inside her over the fact that Rachel’s marriage to Finn had to fail for the possibility to even occur.

Still, sitting on that porch swing that rocked to and fro with the weight of their three bodies pressed against each other, with Rachel squished in the middle, Quinn was content.

+

On a bright and early morning, Rachel heard the engine rev of Finn’s truck, followed by the sound of him pulling out of their driveway. Eyes shot open, she stared at the ceiling for a few seconds while she listened to the silence, to her heart pumping through her body before she shot out of bed still dressed in a pair of skimpy pink shorts and a baggy shirt. She checked the house, made sure Finn really had gone off to work before she slipped her shoes on, and pulled a jacket over her clothes that left most of her legs exposed.

She slipped out of her house, locked the door behind her. Crossed over to Quinn’s house and grabbed the key from under the gnome lawn decoration (Quinn told her of the key’s location – _just in case_ ) and let herself into the Fabray house.

Rachel took the steps two at a time and entered Quinn’s bedroom where the blonde lay, still in a deep sleep. Her breathing came out in slow, even breaths. Rachel unzipped her jacket, kicked off her shoes, and climbed into bed behind Quinn. She spooned against her back, shivering from the warm ecosystem that the blonde’s body created underneath the blanket. She breathed in the scent of Quinn’s hair, kissed her nape, and fell asleep again, almost immediately.

A few hours later, Quinn stirred and bumped into something pressed against her back. She squirmed to face whatever it was that spooned against her and chuckled. She drew Rachel close to her and sleepily kissed her head. “You know, I told you about that key in case of emergencies.”

“This _is_ an emergency,” Rachel mumbled, her arms tightened around Quinn’s waist.

They slept for a few more hours until the sun elbowed its way through the gap in Quinn’s curtains and blinded them with its brightness. They had breakfast and coffee together as if it was the new normal, as if there was no one else in the world but the two of them. They kissed like it was an impulse. They never went for more than a few seconds without touching each other, as if to pass up the chance to hold on to Quinn would result in her drifting away and waking up from this dream.

Eventually they settled on the couch. Quinn sat with her back against the couch’s arm, her legs stretched out, and Rachel situated herself between Quinn’s legs, her back flush against the blonde’s chest. A movie played on the television in front of them, but Quinn would not be able to summarize the plot for she was not paying attention. Quinn swept back Rachel’s hair to one side to expose her neck, and Rachel tilted her head towards Quinn’s direction. She pressed a warm, open-mouthed kiss along the sloping curve of Rachel’s neck and inhaled the scent of her skin.

Rachel squirmed and pressed further back against Quinn. She held Quinn’s hands and guided them up her shirt, which made Quinn hum. Her mouth latched on Rachel’s earlobe. Nibbled and let her teeth scrape against it. Moaning softly, Rachel threw her head back to rest against Quinn’s shoulder. She grasped Rachel’s jaw and tilted her face in her direction for a kiss.

“Quinn…” Rachel whined. Her hips rolled towards nothing, though Quinn scraped her nails gently along the hem of Rachel’s shorts. Goosebumps rose all over her thighs as she spread her legs wider. Quinn stroked the soft skin of Rachel’s damp inner thighs as she nuzzled and mouthed at the fluttering pulse of Rachel’s neck. She nibbled and sucked on her soft skin, always careful not to suck too hard lest she leave a mark.

“Yes, baby?” Quinn murmured into her ear, low and warm and husky, her voice a scratchy reverberation in her throat. Rachel’s legs twitched at the sound of Quinn’s voice in her ear, and the blonde smirked.

Rachel reached back and grasped at the back of Quinn’s neck. Her other hand grasped Quinn’s wrist. Pushed her hand inside her shorts so that Quinn could marvel at the wetness the tips of her fingers touched there. “Touch me,” she pleaded.

Grinning, Quinn kissed her cheek. “Anything for you.”

+

With their naked bodies flush against each other on the couch, Quinn slowly combed her fingers through Rachel’s damp hair so it draped in wavy rivulets all over the smooth planes of her back. Rachel hummed softly, her eyes closed, head tucked under Quinn’s chin.

“Finn told me you two are getting divorced,” Quinn said softly, her fingertips continuing to trace comforting and hypnotic circles on Rachel’s spine – especially when she felt the woman tense on top of her. Careful not to sound accusatory, she asked, “why didn’t you tell me?”

For a long time, Rachel was quiet. When she spoke, it was with a trembling voice, weak and unsure. “I didn’t want to admit that our relationship – this grandiose, brilliant love story of ours – _failed_. When I married him, I was so set in making it work, swore to myself _we_ would be different. I didn’t want us to be just another statistic for those who married young.”

Quinn remained quiet.

“And, I suppose, it also made me feel like I’m terrible with relationships as a whole. I’m scared what being divorced would say about me.”

The blonde kissed Rachel’s forehead. “It just means that your marriage didn’t work out. It says nothing about your character.”

“But it does though,” Rachel said, looking up at Quinn, chin resting on the backs of her hands. “It could mean that I’m not worth sticking around for, that I’m exhausting to love.” Quinn raised a brow and Rachel sighed, buried her face against Quinn’s chest. “I’m just listing possible judgments, Quinn.”

“You’re not exhausting to love. I should know.”

Rachel flushed, pleased. “Okay, but – ”

“You’re also not the only one to blame for this divorce too,” Quinn pointed out. “Most divorces can be one person’s fault, sure, but that doesn’t mean yours is.”

“But I’m the one who still left for New York. I’m the one who can’t be content enough to stay in Ohio and be with my husband.” Rachel argued.

“It’s also Finn who doesn’t want to leave Ohio – why can’t the man be expected to change his ways for his wife? Why does the woman always have to be the one to change her dreams, her _life_ , so that her husband would be happy?” Quinn held Rachel close to her. “I don’t want to make Finn the villain, but you did right to still go for your dreams, Rachel.”

“You’ve always believed in me, huh?” Rachel said through tear-filled eyes.

“You know it,” Quinn responded with a cheesy grin and a wink.

After a few moments of kissing, of relishing each other’s company, Quinn spoke again. “I know this might seem counter-intuitive, but… I want to give you space while you get over your divorce.”

“W-what? But why? I thought we were doing so well!”

“I don’t want this to be an affair,” Quinn said when Rachel opened her mouth to speak, ready to contradict her. “It’s easy to say that this is not _just_ an affair, but sometimes we can’t know consciously and I – ” she sighed and stared at the ceiling, just beyond Rachel’s head. “I want this to work out _so badly_ , you have no idea.”

Rachel’s eyes softened and she kissed Quinn’s lips with a tenderness that made Quinn’s heart lurch with hope and desire. “I want this too. You set the boundary you want and I’ll follow.”

“I don’t want you to commit to me yet – I don’t think it’s smart to be girlfriends as soon as you lose the title of Finn’s wife. Let’s give it a few months before we jump into something more serious between us.”

“Oh,” Rachel sighed in relief. “Thank god. I thought you were going to say I can’t see you or talk to you for months.”

“No way. I don’t think I can handle that.”

Rachel giggled and kissed all over Quinn’s face. “You watch, Quinn Fabray. I’m going to respect your boundaries so well that you’d fall in love with me.”

“You mean more than I already am?” Quinn asked with a raised brow.

Rachel opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Instead, she wriggled in delight and hid against Quinn’s neck. “You don’t know how happy that makes me – hearing you say that.”

Quinn tilted Rachel’s chin up so their eyes met. She kissed Rachel. “I am insanely in love with you.”

With a soft smile, Rachel kissed Quinn. “And I am, beyond reason, beyond doubt, in love with you.”


	7. Chapter 7

On the morning of Quinn’s departure, Finn rang the doorbell to her house. And when she answered, he shouldered his way inside and carried her suitcases to his truck despite Quinn’s insistence that she was going to take a cab to the airport instead. Finn pointedly ignored her as he arranged the suitcases at the back of the truck while Rachel watched with a travelling mug in her grasp from which she drank her coffee.

“There’s no way we’re just going to let you leave and not drop you off at the airport,” Rachel chastised. “We want to milk our time with you as much as we can.”

“Fine,” Quinn sighed. “It’s not like I can stop you, now that you have my bags. Do you realize this is kind of like, a kidnapping? Sort of?”

“I guess,” Finn grinned. He stepped back, brushed the dust from his hands. “Alright, we’re good to go.”

The three of them climbed into the cab of the truck. Finn and Rachel in front and Quinn at the back. It smelled faintly of grease but the truck was neat and clean. A car air freshener twirled and spun on its hook by the rearview mirror. It made the interior smell like faded leather but with a muffled quality.

For their drive to the airport, they rolled the windows down to usher in the cold air while they sang songs from their youth. They belted out songs from their competitive set lists, the speakers thumping with the sheer volume Finn put them in. At stoplights, they got stares, but there was a bright, glittering moment where the three of them – Finn, Rachel, and Quinn – existed beyond boundaries and other people’s judgments and opinions.

As Finn drove, they passed by wide open fields that seemed like a golden blur in the bright autumnal light of day. The kind of openness that once made them feel so small, what with the stark blue sky, cloudless, stretched overhead. But in the truck, with Finn and Rachel, belting songs they all sang before, Quinn felt larger than life. As large as their voices would allow.

It felt strange to be remembering the past, back when they were younger, more foolish, more virulent with their desires, all while heading off to the horizon to the furtherance of Quinn’s future.

The opening chords of Don’t Stop Believin’ played through the speakers and they sang with more fervour than before.

+

Finn pulled over by the curb at the drop-off point of the departures area of the airport. Stepped out of the truck to heave Quinn’s suitcases down while she and Rachel grabbed a trolley with which to cart her luggage. Quinn lifted her bags on top of the ribbed flat of the cart and sighed, staring at Finn and Rachel whom she both loved at different points in her life. She hugged Finn first, arms tight around his neck.

“Thanks for dropping me off even if you didn’t have to. I’m sure you’d rather be at home right now.”

He patted her back and smiled. “That’s not true, I don’t mind. Good luck at New York, Quinn. I’ll let Kurt know you’re in the city too. I’m sure he’ll want to see you.”

“You take care, okay? You can call or text me if you need to talk. I mean it.” She said sternly and Finn nodded. When she released him, he gave her hand a squeeze before climbing into the truck to sit behind the wheel. Quinn noticed him wipe the corners of his eyes with his knuckles.

Before Quinn stood Rachel, eyes brimming with tears that made her eyes brighter than ever. “Don’t look at me like that,” Quinn said weakly. “I’ve always hated seeing you cry – which is saying something because you used to cry _a lot_.”

“Sorry,” Rachel sniffed but with a watery smile.

“I was teasing,” Quinn brushed her knuckles against Rachel’s warm cheek, and she leaned into her touch. “I’ll see you soon, as soon as you come back to New York if you wanted. You won’t even have time to miss me.”

“You’re wrong. I miss you already.”

Quinn laughed and tugged Rachel into her arms. She nestled into Quinn’s neck and sighed. Quinn, knowing that Finn was likely watching them, and the limited time they could spend saying their goodbyes in the busy thoroughfare, released Rachel.

“I love you,” Rachel whispered. She rose to the tips of her toes and kissed Quinn on the lips. It was a brief touch, but it was soft, it was a promise. Quinn’s arms wound around Rachel’s waist to give her a soft squeeze. The dark-haired woman eased herself from Quinn’s embrace to leave. She climbed into the truck beside Finn.

And then Quinn turned around. Eyes following Rachel as they drove away.

+

Finn focused on the winding road ahead, the music’s volume turned low. He just took the ramp that led into the highway after dropping Quinn off at the airport, silence more deafening than the music and the singing that earlier permeated the space of the truck.

He had watched them kiss and it was as if his heart was seized in a tight fist. He rubbed his chest in hopes of alleviating the feeling. As much as he wanted to be happy for Rachel, it was one thing entirely to watch their intimacy. The easy way Quinn’s arms wrapped around Rachel’s waist as if that was where she belonged.

Man enough to admit his jealousy to himself, he sighed in hopes of getting rid of the ache in his chest anyway.

He and Rachel drove in the companionable silence that had come to define their marriage. Rachel on her side of the cab, staring at the passing of the rolling hills, the farmlands, the fields of corn, and the low squat buildings of their hometown. To Finn, they were recognizable, lending the comfort of familiarity that he refused to live without.

The road stretched on for miles and miles of sometimes undulating hills. Finn thought, focused on the road, but his thoughts did not come in coherent words, not in phrases he could speak out loud to be understood by anyone else. Images flashed in his mind. Memories that stemmed from high school.

The way Quinn looked at Rachel after they sang their one and only duet. How Rachel _refused_ to get married the first time without Quinn. Or when Rachel cried during the time Quinn was on a wheelchair and she eased Rachel’s guilt when she told her that the car accident was not her fault. Quinn’s face, the gold of unshed tears in her eyes when she – now that Finn thought about it – implored Rachel to let go of her past and start her future.

How, when Rachel and Quinn looked at each other, it lingered too long to be _just_ friends.

He noted those moments as something important for the sake of their developing friendship once but did not think much of it beyond that.

Until now.

“Oh shit,” Finn muttered under his breath.

Rachel glanced at his direction. “Is something wrong?”

“Just realized something,” Finn said, grip tight against the steering wheel, knuckles paled. He felt queasy. God, how could he have been so stupid? Quinn being in love with Rachel didn’t come for nowhere – it had been right in front of him all along.

“Do you ever think about how you and Quinn could have been together in high school if it wasn’t for me?”

“What brought this on?” Rachel asked with a small furrow in her brow.

“Nothing, nothing… I was just thinking,” Finn mumbled.

Rachel chuckled and held his hand that rested on the truck’s gear stick. “If it had not been for you, I wouldn’t be the woman I am today. I love you, and you are an important man in my life. So no, Finn,” she looked at him and a warm feeling enveloped his chest. “I don’t regret my time with you.”

That Rachel hated the time they spent together, young and in love, was exactly what Finn dreaded. With Rachel’s assurance came a sigh of relief that nearly forced tears in his eyes. He cleared his throat and locked his fingers with hers. “Thank you.”

+

The first few weeks that Quinn lived in New York with Brittany and Santana, she tried her best to grow familiar with the neighbourhood where they lived. It was difficult at first – she got catcalled all the time. People could be rude. Cabs were a free for all. And living in a cramped apartment with her very sexually active best friends who could go for _hours_ left Quinn tired most mornings. Not even her presence in their apartment could stop them from fucking all night long.

Not that Quinn wanted them to stop. As much as possible, she made herself scarce to explore the city – Rachel’s city. She went to museums, spent a lot of her time staring at paintings at the MET or killed time after work browsing the shelves at the bookstores in every corner of the city.

Her job, so far, had been easy. A lot of phone calls and emails, nothing strenuous nor directly theatre-related, though her boss, Elaine, assured her it was because the planning for the upcoming season had yet to begin. For right now, Quinn spent a lot of time in the office ensuring that the theatre director received and responded to her calls and messages on time. It wasn’t glamorous by any stretch but it allowed her to watch how the backstage operated for a real Broadway show rather than student-led productions that made up her expertise thus far.

For the most part, Quinn’s life transmuted into something busy and hectic that it did not leave enough time for her other concerns. Though when her mom came home from her romp on the other side of the world, Judy Fabray called Quinn to thank her for looking after the house for the time she was gone. She promised to help her pay for an apartment, much to Quinn’s appreciation since currently, she slept on the couch in her friends’ living room and it was lumpy and smelled like greasy french fries.

One night, after a month of living in New York, Quinn opted to stay in rather than cruise the New York nightclub scene. Santana found her on the couch in sweats, the television tuned into the Food Network.

“Are you going through something?” Santana asked.

“No? What do you mean?”

“Is Rachel back from Ohio yet?”

At the mention of her name, Quinn sagged. The divorce proceedings took longer than usual and a month passed before Rachel returned to New York as a divorced woman.

She came back just as work at Quinn’s place of employment piled up so it left her with hardly any time to sleep, let alone socialize. It vastly diminished the amount of free time she had – having only weekends free. As if fate decided to pile more obstacles, Rachel had shows on weekends which left _her_ void of downtime as well.

Quinn sighed. She was starting to think they were not meant to be.

“I know _that_ look,” Santana said with a scowl as she plopped herself on the couch beside Quinn. “You haven’t seen Rachel in so long that you’re not sure if she even wants to see you anymore.” Quinn sagged even further and Santana sucked her teeth, further announcing her annoyance. “You’ve been texting, right?”

“Sometimes – she hardly has time to respond most days because of her busy schedule, and when we do get the chance to be texting, it’s so late and one of us inevitably falls asleep almost as soon as we start.” Quinn dug the heels of her palms into her eyes. “Maybe she was just bored in Lima so she decided to kill time with me.”

Santana raised a fine brow. “Did she say that?”

“Well, no.”

“You’re making an ass of yourself,” Santana reprimanded as she threw an arm over Quinn’s shoulders to pull her into a haphazard hug.

“It’s not really something you’d say to someone’s face though.” Quinn said, her head resting on the crook of her best friend’s shoulder.

“Is it not?”

Quinn laughed. “Not everyone is as honest as you, Santana.”

“They should – it lets people know where you stand. But anyway, I can’t stand seeing you moping, especially for Rachel fuckin’ Berry.”

“Old habits die hard.”

“Jesus Christ,” Santana snorted and rubbed Quinn’s back. In an odd non-sequitur that nearly gave Quinn whiplash, she asked, “you’re going apartment-hunting this Thursday, yeah? Let’s have lunch after – my treat.”

“Sure,” Quinn said, as she did not think much of the offer.

+

Quinn emerged from the fifth apartment-viewing she attended on a brisk Thursday afternoon. Of the five places, only two stood out to her, really. One was close to her workplace but the hallways and the rickety, haunted elevator reeked of long-dead roses, and the other was not far from Brittany and Santana’s place, but the manager of the apartment _leered_ at her to the point of unbearable discomfort – which was saying something.

Before she parted ways with her real-estate agent, she checked her phone for messages. One was from Santana, asking her to meet her at the restaurant they agreed on. The other message was from her boss who called for a meeting at the theatre for a last-minute discussion of the decisions made surrounding the upcoming theatrical season. Quinn chewed her bottom lip and called Santana’s number.

“I won’t be able to make it,” Quinn said hurriedly as she made her way towards the subway. “Boss called for an in-person meeting. Raincheck?”

For a beat, Santana was quiet that Quinn had to make sure she was still on the phone with her. “Hello? Are you still there?”

“That’s fine, Quinn. Your career is important, after all.”

“Thanks for understanding. I’ll see you at home,” Quinn said.

Just as she hung up, she heard a familiar voice before Santana hung up. Quinn paused in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at the blacked-out screen of her phone while around her, pedestrians wove their way around the obstacle of her body, shooting her annoyed looks.

It might just be that Quinn missed her, but the voice she heard definitely sounded like Rachel.

+

A week later, Quinn, back in her couch territory in her best friends’ apartment. Santana came in after a long day of recording sessions. She kicked her boots off and had a look of surprise on her features when she saw Quinn on the couch. “Don’t you usually work on Wednesdays?”

“I do, but not today. Boss has a meeting with the board of directors so she gave me the day off.”

“And you’re sitting here? Instead of – ”

Quinn licked the back of her yogurt spoon. “Instead of what?”

“Rachel has Wednesdays off too, _stupid_. You’re the one who told me that!”

She blinked once, twice. “Oh. Yeah.”

Santana stood, shoulders squared, stance wide and imposing as she stared down at Quinn. “Well?”

As always, Santana had her brusque way of making Quinn feel inept and stupid – which was how she felt in general regarding this whole ordeal with Rachel, anyway. She did not have the courage to ask if Rachel still wanted to see her, or that their early autumn fling was just that – a fling, something that transpired because there was nothing better to do. It hurt her to think this way, but it was safer than to take a chance, to reach out to Rachel only to face rejection.

Quinn looked up and saw that Santana was typing away on her phone. “What are you doing?”

“Rachel’s on her way here so I suggest you finish your self-pity party and at least look presentable.”

The blonde’s jaw dropped. “Y-you _can’t_ do that!”

“And why the fuck not? This is my apartment and I can invite whomever I want.” Santana smirked.

Quinn sat back, crestfallen, so Santana sighed and sat down beside her. “Quinn, listen to me. Rachel _wants_ to come over. She wants to see _you_. All this dread that you have, all these scenarios of her not wanting you anymore? That’s all in your head.” Santana patted Quinn’s cheek as she sighed. “So, hurry up. Get dressed, unless you want her to see you this pathetic over her?”

Quinn scrambled to get into the shower and got dressed in a freshly-laundered sweater and sweatpants. There was no point in being dressy about it – it was still her day off, after all. Her heart raced when Santana buzzed Rachel in. It was only a matter of time until she appeared on the front step so Quinn paced while Santana sat on the couch, staring at her with a weary expression on her face.

Then, the soft knocks came. Quinn and Santana shared a look, where Santana wordlessly urged Quinn to open the door, but Quinn did not want to. Santana scowled and Quinn conceded. With shaky hands, she opened the door.

Rachel immediately threw her arms around Quinn. Their bodies met with such force that Quinn staggered back, like two magnets polarized into each other’s embrace. Breath knocked out of her lungs. Quinn kicked the door shut with her arms still around Rachel. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Rachel mumbled against Quinn’s chest. “Why didn’t you tell me you have a day off? I would have came to see you the moment you woke up.”

Quinn opened her mouth to speak, ready to admit the dark thoughts she had been having these past month since they parted ways at the airport. Instead, she sighed and burrowed her nose against Rachel’s hair and breathed her in. “I know – I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d have the time to see me.”

“Outside of work hours, I’d always make time for you.” Rachel said, eyes full of earnest intensity. She glanced over at Santana who loomed in the living room space of the apartment. “Do you want to go on a walk?” Her voice dropped into a stage whisper. “I don’t think Santana’s going to give us privacy any time soon.”

“I can _hear_ you,” the woman in question snarled.

Quinn laughed as she nodded. She grabbed her keys, her phone, and said goodbye to Santana who merely smirked and waved her hand as if shooing Quinn away. With Rachel’s hand in hers – and it felt so small, so right, with their fingers laced together – they walked towards the nearby park. At present, it was empty for it was morning and the children were at school.

“I’m sorry,” Quinn said again. “I haven’t seen you in so long that I was convinced that you were done with me. That you would never want to see me again.”

“I want to see you every single day if I could. I want you to be the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning, and the last before I close my eyes to sleep,” Rachel said. “But I thought you wanted the space.”

They occupied a park bench that overlooked the playground. It was mid-November now, and most of the trees had taken on a reddish golden hue. Fallen leaves carpeted the emerald lawns, and a frigid gust of wind blew Rachel and Quinn to sit closer together.

“I guess I don’t really know what I want. I say I want the space but I want to be with you all the time.”

“We can fix that,” Rachel argued. “I’m not saying that we should be together _every_ waking moment, but we can have a regular date night. I need you to understand that I want to be with you. I want my committed Quinn-time. Just say when and I’ll make that time for you.”

Quinn watched Rachel speak, and with every insistent word, Quinn had to wonder, _what the hell was I thinking?_ It really was _that_ easy. She wrapped her arm around Rachel’s shoulders, pulled her close, and kissed her just as she paused from talking. “Okay.”

+

Rachel’s apartment was pristine as Quinn stepped inside. Theatre posters hung framed on the cream-coloured walls – not all posters were of Rachel’s face. Quinn closely inspected the _Funny Girl_ poster on the wall and gasped.

“That’s an original poster from 1968?” Quinn whirled to face Rachel with a look of shock across her face.

“Sure is,” Rachel grinned. “I found it in a box of rolled-up posters at the back of the theater, back when I was on off-Broadway.”

“You stole it?”

“No! I resent that,” Rachel threw her keys in a bowl and helped Quinn out of her jacket so she could hang it on the coatrack. “I asked the theatre manager if I could have it. If anything, he was relieved to have me take it off his hands. The other posters in the box weren’t worth much, but I sold them off eBay. That’s the only one that was worth anything to me. Would you like some water?”

“Please,” Quinn nodded, and Rachel went into the kitchen. The blonde sat on the couch and admired the personality of the room. It was nothing like Rachel’s bedroom back when they were teenagers, but the Broadway memorabilia were ever-present. And Quinn would not have it any other way.

Upon Rachel’s return, she sat on the couch beside Quinn with a glass of water in hand. She drank from it in small mouthfuls, aware of Rachel’s eyes trained on her. Quinn wiped her lips with the back of her mouth. “What?”

Without a word, Rachel took the glass of water from Quinn’s hands. She set it on the coffee table. She leaned towards Quinn and kissed her. A shudder rippled through Quinn’s body from the warmth of Rachel’s lips, her body radiating with the heat she had longed for during her lonely nights laying on her friends’ couch. Her arms wound around Rachel’s waist and Quinn found herself pinned against the couch, Rachel’s body on top of her.

And Quinn would not have it any other way.

Her beating heart, its pulse and thrum, attuned to Rachel’s proximity. As did her soul. Quinn welcomed Rachel into her and she took to her as if magnetized. Rachel’s heat became Quinn’s heat, and Quinn’s spit became Rachel’s spit. They squirmed to the oblivion of pleasure that Quinn never wanted to back away from, ever again.

Sated, Rachel rested her cheek against the rhythmic pumping of Quinn’s heart. She smiled, half-asleep and lazy, fingers tracing the textured skin of Quinn’s stiff nipples.

“I wouldn’t mind feeling that every single day,” Quinn murmured against Rachel’s hair.

“Yeah?” Rachel looked at her and grinned. Her face was like looking at the love in the eyes and twice as beautiful. “Me too.”


	8. epilogue

Five years have passed since Rachel and Finn’s divorce, and within that same year, the rest of the glee club found out. Word, regardless of whether they were in high school or not, still travelled fast. They each took the time to call Rachel and Finn – separately – to express their heartfelt apologies, their concerns. They both appreciated the calls, but both remained unfazed and they remained good friends. Whenever Finn visited Kurt and Blaine in New York, he never failed to visit Quinn and Rachel.

Quinn’s bravado about giving Rachel space post-divorce did not get very far, thanks to the condition of the New York real estate market. To save money and to finally escape the continuous sounds of moaning and copulation from Brittany and Santana, Quinn moved in with Rachel in an apartment that overlooked a park. At three in the morning, it was almost as peaceful as being back in Lima.

Within the five years, Quinn worked her way through the ranks of the theatre staff until she became – by sheer luck she would argue, but Rachel would claim talent and hard work – Phoenix Theatre’s artistic director.

This meant that she had a major decisive power when it came to the shows their theatre wanted to produce. One play in particular caught her attention – about a small-town girl whose talent outshined everyone and their mother, whose dreams stretched and yawned to reach the bright lights of the city of New York. Quinn immediately put the bid to produce it, and she swore she had no idea that Rachel was chosen to play the starring role.

“You really didn’t know, huh?” Elaine asked. She was now a member of the board of directors, and she chose Quinn for the position of artistic director for the theatre.

“She told me she auditioned for a role, got it, but she didn’t tell me what the story was about. She’s superstitious like that,” Quinn explained. “But if it’s an issue – ”

“It’s not the first time we produced a play where a director has a wife in the cast so don’t sweat it too much,” Elaine said before sipping coffee from her porcelain mug. Quinn clamped her lips together, not sure if she should correct Elaine’s assumption of Quinn’s marital status, but she chose to remain silent instead – the _mistake_ , if she would even call it that, left her giddy, more than anything else. “It would only be a problem if Rachel got the role because of your recommendation – which is not the case at all.”

When the production for Rachel’s musical began – titled _Ohio!_ of all things – Quinn made sure that she showed no bias for her. Still, the fact that Rachel was the lead actress meant she had access to certain boons, like the best dressing room, the ear of the director, and in turn, the loving eyes of the Phoenix Theatre’s artistic director. During rehearsals, Quinn stood by the wings, watching in awe as Rachel lit up the stage with her presence.

The director called for a short break while she worked with the other lead. Rachel skipped on over to Quinn but was interrupted by a production assistant who handed her a bottle of water.

“Here’s some water, Mrs. Fabray,” she said.

“Oh! Thank you,” Rachel flushed. Being called Mrs. Fabray was certainly… something. It filled her belly with a pleasant warmth, made her queasy with love as she accepted the bottle. She drank from it as she approached Quinn. “You shouldn’t watch me during rehearsals! It loses the magic and mystique when you watch me for opening night!” She complained.

“I help you with your lines all the time,” Quinn said with a raised brow.

“I _know_ , but those are just lines. This is different!”

Quinn rolled her eyes and tugged Rachel to a dark corner of the theatre. Pushed her against the wall as Rachel’s arms wound around her neck, a delighted grin on her face.

“I have to say… this is definitely the best perk of dating a staff member,” Rachel said softly against Quinn’s neck. She gave Quinn’s pale skin a gentle bite, hips pushing out to press against the blonde. Quinn trailed a mouthful of kisses along the column of Rachel’s neck, her jaw, her cheeks to her mouth. Rachel grabbed a fistful of Quinn’s shirt. Lips parted to take Quinn’s tongue into her mouth as she moaned, breathless and needy.

Through the speakers scattered throughout the backstage area, they heard the director’s announcement that asked the actors to get back to their marks. Quinn pulled back from a dazed Rachel, and the blonde grinned. “Hey, look alive. You look about ready to sleep.”

Rachel snapped to attention and gave Quinn a half-hearted frown. “And whose fault is that?” She asked as she followed Quinn out of the dark hallway to head back to the stage.

The director glanced at Rachel and then at Quinn. “You look flustered. You ran a marathon or something?” She asked Rachel who turned red and buried her face into the script rather than dignify the question with a response. Quinn giggled to herself. She caught Rachel’s eye and blew her a kiss before returning to the office so her girlfriend could focus on her work – and so she could focus on hers.

Hours passed as Quinn, with her glasses perched on her nose and her hair tied in a loose bun, prepared the press materials for the various plays, stage shows, and musicals that their theatre would be producing. Time flew past – and quickly too, that she did not notice that rehearsals were over if it were not for Rachel’s knocks against her office door.

“Come in,” Quinn said, leaning back to give her back a stretch.

“We’re all done rehearsing. Do you want to go home together?” Rachel entered the office and closed the door behind her. She fumbled with the door knob until there was a soft click of the lock. Quinn removed her glasses and folded them on top of her desk. She smirked.

“I was going to say yes but you seem to have other ideas, Miss Berry.”

“Did you know one of the production assistants called me Mrs. Fabray today?”

Quinn’s expression remained unchanged. “Oh? And how did that make you feel?”

“Good – warm,” Rachel walked to Quinn’s side of the desk and hopped to sit on its surface. Still in her habit of wearing short skirts and thigh highs, she crossed her legs and looked at Quinn with meaningful eyes. “Anyway, do you want to hear my idea?”

Quinn crossed her fingers together and rested them on top of her stomach. “Enlighten me, then.”

Rather than use her words, Rachel chose to act instead. She climbed on top of Quinn’s lap and kissed her with the same heat, the same need as before. As if they had not been interrupted, as if just picking up from where they left off. Quinn moaned, low and deep against Rachel’s mouth as she guided the blonde’s hands up the hem of her sweater. She raked her blunt nails against the smoothness of Rachel’s skin. Goosebumps rose across her back and a low shudder rippled through her body.

“I bet you never thought we’d fuck on your desk at work, huh?” Rachel said, her breasts rising and falling with every shallow breath she took. She reclined on her back, skirt hiked up, sweater halfway up her torso, the cups of her bra askew. Her hair a scattered mess across Quinn’s desk who looked at her with a smug grin on her face.

“That’s not true – I’ve thought about it lots of times,” Quinn wiped her fingers on some tissue and threw it in the garbage bin. “Let’s go home. Can you stand?”

Rachel giggled and held up a hand. “Give me five minutes.

+

It was the last show of the season and Rachel was already half in tears in front of her bowl of cereal that morning. Quinn kissed the back of her neck and rubbed her shoulders in a soothing caress. “Time flies fast when you’re having fun, huh?”

“I _know_ ,” Rachel sobbed, her spoon clattering against the side of the porcelain bowl. She turned and held out her arms, and immediately Quinn hugged her. “I’m going to miss this show so much.”

“You’re literally the main character though.”

“Yes, but at least in the play people like my character.”

Quinn kissed Rachel. “People like you. They’re just too intimidated to say it to your face.”

“But I’m not intimidating, am I?” Rachel looked up at Quinn with her slightly-puffed reddened eyes, her small pout. Quinn laughed and kissed her cheek.

“You’re the least intimidating person I know, but when you’re wearing your paparazzi sunglasses you can be a bit hard to read.” Quinn stood and kissed the top of Rachel’s head. “I’m going to go to the theatre early. We’re having an afterparty, okay? Don’t forget.”

Rachel watched Quinn leave through the front door. She finished eating her breakfast, did the dishes, and went into the bathroom to shower. She had a few hours to kill before she had to head to the theatre but still, she changed into a pair of black jeans, a black cowl neck sweater, and tied her hair in a ponytail. She donned her sunglasses and rushed out of the apartment to meet Santana in a café.

“You look like you’re about to rob a store,” Santana greeted as Rachel sat on the seat across from her.

“Hello to you too,” she huffed.

“Did you get it?”

Rachel nodded and carefully retrieved a piece of string in her pocket which she handed to Santana. “I already measured it. It’s around fifty-seven millimetres.”

Santana consulted the chart on her phone. “So that’s a size eight. How’d you get this?” She gestured towards the string.

“Tied it around Quinn’s finger while she was asleep.”

“Nice. She _is_ a heavy sleeper.” She downed the rest of the coffee from her mug and sighed. “Are you ready?”

Rachel barely had a chance to catch her breath and drink her coffee but she nodded regardless. Along with Santana, they headed into the mall and towards a jewelry store. The rings, the glint of gold, the sparkle of the diamonds made the store glisten and shimmer. A man in a crisp suit straightened at the sight of the two women. “Mrs. Lopez, should I be alarmed or relieved to see you back again so soon?”

“Neither, thank you very much. Carter, this is Rachel Berry. She’s in need of your expertise today.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Carter dipped his head and flexed his long, tapered fingers. “What are you looking for?”

“An engagement ring – for my girlfriend,” Rachel said. It was overwhelming to be in such a place full of lights. Everything sparkled and Rachel felt the need to squint as she looked down at the display case filled with bracelets, lockets, and necklaces all with diamonds crammed on the surface of the accessories.

“You’ve met her girlfriend before. She helped me pick out Brittany’s ring,” Santana mentioned.

“Ah yes, miss Fabray,” the older gentleman nodded in remembrance. “If I recall correctly, she had classic tastes,” he steered them towards another section of the store that held rings with smaller jewels mounted against the simple bands. “She didn’t strike me as the type as to want a diamond that can knock a man’s eye out.”

“She’s too pretty to wear flashy jewelry,” Rachel said. “I don’t want anything to distract from her face.”

“Agreed,” Carter said.

It took Rachel a few minutes to choose a ring that she felt Quinn would like. Carter spent some time adjusting the ring size to fit the measurement she had. She emerged out of the store with Santana and together they made their way to the theatre for Rachel’s last performance.

“Gotta say, I’m impressed with how quickly you chose the ring. And you have decent taste,” Santana said.

“You and Carter narrowed it down pretty well for me so it was only a matter of being decisive. And the ring is just the thing – it can always be replaced or changed,” Rachel gave the velvet box in her pocket a squeeze. “As always, asking the question is always the hard part.”

Santana laughed and shook her head. “Knowing Quinn, she’d say yes before you even finish asking.”

Rachel bit back an anxious laugh and smiled instead. “I sure hope so.”

+

The party after the final performance of _Ohio!_ left the cast and staff heavily drunk and partying hard all through the night. Rachel had a few drinks with her castmates but every instance that her eyes caught sight of the most beautiful girl in the room, she gained the fortitude to reject another offer of tequila shots. It was around three in the morning before she and Quinn had the opportunity to be alone together.

They stood outside of the bar that was rented out specifically for their use. The cool night air licked the sweat from their skin, and even though they reeked of cigarette smoke, spilled beer, and the salt of perspiration, they cuddled together to fend off the night’s chill.

“That was your best performance yet, baby,” Quinn murmured against Rachel’s temple.

“Thank you. I gave it my all,” Rachel tightened her arm around Quinn’s and smiled. “I know I was being dramatic this morning – ”

“You? Dramatic? Perish the thought.”

“Har har,” Rachel scowled even as Quinn threw her head back and laughed her full-bodied throaty laugh. And suddenly it was not so strange to have the ring in its velvet box, burning the walls of her pocket. Rachel wanted _this_ – Quinn, laughing at her, or with her it does not matter, as long as _Quinn_ was with _her_.

“Sorry,” Quinn grinned and bent down to kiss Rachel’s knuckles. “As you were saying?”

“I know I was being dramatic this morning, but now I’m just looking forward to not working for a couple of weeks,” Rachel said. “It should be downtime for the theatre too, right?”

“Mmmm, for a while, yes. I still have to finalize the playbill layout for next season among other things but I can take a vacation with you, if that’s what you’re thinking of.”

“Good. That is precisely what I want,” Rachel beamed and wrapped her arms around Quinn’s waist.

They stayed for half an hour more until they decided to return home. They bade farewell to the remaining people in the bar and returned to their apartment. Quinn showered first while Rachel paced around their living room, the velvet box never once having left her person since she purchased it – save for when she was performing, of course.

Her heart was in her throat. She had never felt this nervous before, and that was saying something. It was easier to brush off the nervousness of performance because it was for strangers, dozens of faces she would never see again. This was for _Quinn_ and Quinn’s eyes and ears only. What Santana told her was reassuring, but anxiety and doubt lingered in the back of her head.

What if it was not true? What if Quinn said no?

Rachel sighed – an exhalation of the anxious energy that built up inside her.

“Shower’s free,” Quinn appeared in the dark hallway, dressed in shorts and a heather grey shirt. “Rach? Why are you pacing in the dark?”

“No reason! Just trying to memorize lines for the next play I have lined up!”

“Where’s your script? I thought you’re taking a break?”

“Trying to be off-book and ready always, you know me!” Rachel giggled but even in her own ears she sounded shrill and manic. “I-I’m going to go shower.”

She brushed past Quinn and locked herself in the bathroom. She sighed and placed the velvet box on the sink as she struggled to relax under the stream of the water. Once finished, she dried herself and dressed in sleep clothes. She made sure her shorts had pockets, just in case.

From the hallway Rachel could see Quinn. Her back against the headboard, the lamp lit on her side of the bedroom. She was reading a novel, as was her habit, before bed. Her glasses on her nose, Rachel noted how Quinn looked so beautiful haloed by the pale light from the lamp.

“Rachel? What are you doing just standing by the doorway?” Quinn looked up at her and placed her book on the nightstand. She removed her glasses. “You’re acting a little weird.”

“How long do you think a divorced woman should wait before getting married again?” Rachel blurted. Mentally she smacked herself. Way to throw that curveball, Berry.

Still, Quinn seemed unphased. “It depends. Recovery and growth can’t be mapped in such clear-cut terms. Does this divorced woman still think about her ex?”

“Not until she’s asked.”

Quinn chuckled and tugged the blankets off Rachel’s side of the bed. She patted the surface and like a begrudging child, she crawled into bed beside Quinn. Nuzzled against her size, her head against her chest as Quinn rested her cheek against the top of her head. “Are we talking about you, baby?”

“Maybe,” Rachel grumbled.

Again, Quinn chuckled and rubbed the length of Rachel’s arms. “I can’t answer that for you. If you feel you’re ready to get married again, then that’s great.”

Rachel shuffled so she faced Quinn. It would not do to be sleepy, drawn by the soporific effects Quinn’s hands on her would bring. “But I’m asking _you_. Do _you_ think it’s smart for _me_ to get married again?”

Quinn raised a stern brow. “It depends. Who are you getting married to?”

“ _You!_ Quinn, who else!” Rachel shrieked, her voice rising to a fever pitch.

“Well, you didn’t ask me yet,” Quinn teased. She reached for Rachel’s hand and kissed each knuckle, one by one. “I think if you wanted us to get married, I’d be excited. I have never held it against you that you and Finn broke up, and I don’t think that just because you’ve been divorced once doesn’t mean that you’ll get divorced again.”

Rachel sniffed. “You really think so?”

Quinn nodded. “Of course.”

“Okay – then…” Rachel reached into her pocket and unfolded the box. “Quinn Fabray, will you – ”

“Yes.”

“ – be my wife – wow,” Rachel giggled and looked at Quinn in disbelief. “Santana was right.”

“You’re really proposing to me _and_ bringing up Santana in the same sentence?” Quinn asked with a look of incredulity in her face.

“Well, she just said that if I ask you to marry me, you’d say yes before I even finish asking,” Rachel grinned as she plucked the ring from the box. She took Quinn’s hand and slipped it into her finger, relieved when it glided with such ease to the base of her digit. “Do you like the ring?”

“I do,” Quinn said though she did not spare the ring a glance. She tugged Rachel close to her and kissed her. Rachel softened into her arms and returned the fervour of her kiss, arms wrapped around her waist. “For the record, I was thinking of asking you.”

Rachel smiled and together they sank into bed, their heads resting on the same pillow as they looked into each other’s eyes. “I’m happy I was the one who asked,” Rachel said, her fingers laced with Quinn’s. She admired the ring that glimmered on her finger as she kissed Quinn’s wrists, her palms. “I love you, Quinn.” She said as tears sprang fully-formed in her eyes.

With a soft sound in her throat, Quinn held Rachel close. “And I love you, Rachel.” She murmured against her hair. In Quinn’s arms, Rachel swore that the forever she had always longed for had finally been found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The premise of this story was for me to test my morals. I remember someone asked me on tumblr (@ficklefic) what are things I won't write and I mentioned cheating of any kind, amongst other things. True enough, writing this took a lot of internal monologue. I sometimes feel that the infidelity aspect of this story was understated, mostly because I'm a coward. It was difficult, especially with how I characterized Finn. And I wanted it to be difficult. Had he been a dick, it would have been too easy.
> 
> This story feels rushed because, well. I rushed it. And drama and angst is not how I roll, as you all probably know by now. It might sound like I'm making excuses, but that's because I am. 
> 
> I only wrote this because I wanted to try something and that was enough for me.
> 
> Anyway, that's it! See you in my next fic, whenever that is!


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